Friday Focus: The Friday 56 and 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 Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley. The excerpts shared are from a trade paperback I purchased several years ago.

 

Beginning:  I will always remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard that my father had died.

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Page 56:  Never let your fear decided your destiny

I knew then that the seven words Pa Salt had left me could not have described me and who I was any more accurately.

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My thoughts: This book, the first in a series of eight novels, is a sweeping family saga that I have been wanting to start for a few years now. I even bought a copy several years ago, but it has languished on a shelf for far too long. Fortunately, it was my book club's January choice, so I finally dusted it off and immersed myself in the first installment of the enthralling story of the D'Apliese family. All members of my book group loved it too—and have since gone on to read other books in the series. 

I'm also committed to reading the entire series—in fact, the release of the last book is imminent. It will take me longer to move along in the series than the other book club members, but I am happy to have a new series to savor.

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From GoodReads: Maia D’Apliese and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home, “Atlantis”—a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of Lake Geneva—having been told that their beloved father, who adopted them all as babies, has died. Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage—a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings.

Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela—passionate and longing to see the world—convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski’s studio and in the heady, vibrant cafes of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.

In this sweeping, epic tale of love and loss—the first in a unique, spellbinding series of seven novels—Lucinda Riley showcases her storytelling talent like never before.

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This Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for the blog, bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.

 

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings #92

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 Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley, which I borrowed from the library.

 

Beginning:  

Maia

June 2007

First Quarter

13; 16; 21

 I will always remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard that my father had died.

*********************
Page 56:  "'The next morning, after making my requisite cup of tea, I returned to the bedroom, tentatively pulled the envelope from under my pillow, and carried it into the sitting room.  I studied it for a while as I sipped my tea."

*********************   

My thoughts:  I am intrigued by the premise of this new series that according to the author's note, "is loosely based on the mythology of the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades, the well-known constellation next to the famous belt of Orion."

This first book in the series has completely drawn me in—introducing six very different sisters, revealing clues about their origins, and setting the stage for a family saga of grand proportions.

**********************

From Goodreads:   Maia D’Apliese and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home, “Atlantis”—a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of Lake Geneva—having been told that their beloved father, who adopted them all as babies, has died. Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage—a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings.

Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela—passionate and longing to see the world—convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski’s studio and in the heady, vibrant cafes of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.

In this sweeping, epic tale of love and loss—the first in a unique, spellbinding series of seven novels—Lucinda Riley showcases her storytelling talent like never before.

 

Which book are you reading now or about to start?

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings #92 was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com. This post cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are encouraged and appreciated.