Book Beginnings on Fridays - The Ballroom

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

I started reading an ARC of The Ballroom by Anna Hope yesterday evening. It's published by Doubleday and Transworld Publishers on 11th February. I loved the authors previous novel  and you can read my review of The Wake here

 

'Are you going to behave?' The man's voice echoed.

'Are you going to behave?'

She made a noise. Could have been yes. Could have been no, but the blanket was pulled off her head and she gasped for air.

 

 

 

Book Description

Where love is your only escape ....

1911: Inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors,
where men and women are kept apart
by high walls and barred windows,
there is a ballroom vast and beautiful.
For one bright evening every week
they come together
and dance.
When John and Ella meet
It is a dance that will change
two lives forever.

Set over the heatwave summer of 1911, the end of the Edwardian era, THE BALLROOM is a tale of unlikely love and dangerous obsession, of madness and sanity, and of who gets to decide which is which.  

 

 

Waiting On Wednesday - The Fireman

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases we can't wait to be published.

 

The Fireman by Joe Hill is due to be published in June by Gollancz.

 

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.

Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.

In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman's secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke. 

Book Beginnings on Fridays - NOS4R2

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

Yesterday I started reading NOS4R2 by Joe Hill.

 

Nurse Thornton dropped into the long term care ward a little before eight with a hot bag of blood for Charlie Manx.

She was coasting on autopilot, her thoughts not on her work.

 

 

 

Book Description

Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.

Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4R2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”

Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.

 

My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

 

 

Book Description

Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable. 

 

 

My Thoughts

I loved Oliver Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout so was delighted to get her latest offering from Netgalley. It is a short novel and written in a disjointed way which along with the lack of background behind Lucy's thoughts and conversations with her mother made it difficult for me to get into. It's obviously meant to be like this and has been getting plenty of rave reviews but unfortunately it didn't work for me and I'm left feeling disappointed.

The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood

 

 

In 2004 Sean Jackson is having a weekend away with family and friends to celebrate his 50th birthday when his 3 year old daughter Coco goes missing overnight. Twelve years on and it's still a mystery as to what happened to her. Some of the people who attended that fateful weekend have met up again (including Coco's twin Ruby and older half-sister Mila), this time for Sean's funeral. The chapters of the book are split between these two periods in time.

Lots more characters, most of whom are unpleasant, are introduced early on. For me this meant that I had to concentrate more than usual to try and recall who was who. I soon got into the story though and liked the way we're gradually fed snippets of information and clues as to what happened to Coco, before the truth is revealed at the end. Also I loved Ruby and Mila, they are very likeable and I was rooting for them throughout.

 

This is the third book by Alex Marwood, they are all different crime novels, not at all formulaic and I've enjoyed them all.

 

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy in return for an honest review

 

Rating: 4 out of 5

 

Book Beginnings on Fridays - The Darkest Secret

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

This week my book beginning is from The Darkest Secret, it's the latest novel by Alex Marwood and was published on the 7th January by Sphere. 

 

 

Dear all -

 

Apologies for the general email, but I desperately need your help.

 

My goddaughter, Coco Jackson, disappeared from her family's holiday home in Bournemouth on the night of Sunday/Monday August 29th/30th, the bank holiday weekend just gone. Coco is three years old.

 

All police experience suggests that the first forty eight hours are crucial in cases of child abduction, so time is of the essence.

 

 

  

 

Book Description

 

  When identical twin Coco goes missing during a family celebration, there is a media frenzy. Her parents are rich and influential, as are the friends they were with at their holiday home by the sea.
But what really happened to Coco?
Over two intense weekends - the first when Coco goes missing and the second twelve years later at the funeral of her father - the darkest of secrets will gradually be revealed...

 

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It was created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books but now has a permanent home here

 

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. This week I downloaded two eBooks from the Amazon 12 days of Kindle sale.

 

 

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

I've been following her for the past few days. I know where she buys her groceries, where she has her dry cleaning done, where she works. I don't know the colour of her eyes or what they look like when they're scared. But I will.

 

  Mia Dennett can't resist a one-night stand with the enigmatic stranger she meets in a bar.
But going home with him might turn out to be the worst mistake of Mia's life... 

An addictively suspenseful and tautly written thriller, The Good Girl is a compulsive debut that reveals how, even in the perfect family, nothing is as it seems...

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson's dazzling debut novel is a deeply moving story of family heartbreak and happiness.

Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.