Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays: Guilt


This week my teaser lines come from Guilt, the latest Alex Delaware novel by Jonathan Kellerman (the first book I've read in the series).  I read this one on my Kindle, so I'm not sure about page numbers. And it's more than two lines -- I apologize about that -- but they're short lines:
"She's hurt?" said Daisy.
"She's dead, ma'am. Someone murdered her."
"Oh, no!"
"I'm afraid yes, Mrs. Weathers."
..."Poor thing." She cried. It seemed genuine, but who could be sure about anything on the west side of L.A.  (Kindle Loc.3087)
Never been to the west side of L.A. (or any side of L.A., for that matter), so I have no idea what it's like.  But we're dealing with Hollywood types here, so yeah, I guess it would be hard to know what's real.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays: The Book of Secrets


This week my teaser lines come from The Book of Secrets by Elizabeth Joy Arnold, just out this month as a "Bantam Books Trade Paperback Original," which means, I take it, that it doesn't come in a hardcover edition.  (But it does come in a Kindle edition. Strange. Possibly hardbacks really are on the way out.) The pre-publication buzz claimed Arnold is "a combination of Diane Setterfield, Eleanor Brown and Gillian Flynn" -- I've never read anything by Gillian Flynn, but so far the writing doesn't remind me much of Brown or Setterfield.  Anyway, here's my teaser, from the book's opening chapter:
Once upon a time there was a girl named Chloe who lived virtually alone, in a cottage by the woods.  Until her eighth birthday when she woke to find her mother already gone to work, without a good morning, a kiss, a birthday wish.  Chloe had been forgotten. (p.4)
But don't worry too much -- Chloe is about to embark on some very interesting adventures.



Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Booking Through Thursday: Summer Reading Redux

This week BTT asks:

Do your reading habits change in the summer? Do you take your books outside more? Do you curl up in the air conditioning? Do you read fluff instead of serious books? Are you too busy playing in the sun or gardening or whatever to read much at all?

I don't think my reading habits really change much during the summer months.  After looking back over my reading lists from the past few years, it looks like sometimes I read more during the summer months and sometimes less, so I'd say time of year doesn't significantly affect my bookish habits. And I'm not really the outdoor type, so I'm not likely to do a lot of my reading outside -- and anyway, the summers are much too hot here in central Texas to do much reading away from the air conditioning.  The only exception to that is when I'm at the beach.  But even then, the type of books I read doesn't change -- I read pretty much the same genres year-round.  So I guess you could say I'm decidedly set in my ways -- and too old to change now!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Review and Teaser: And (Ampersand) Sons

Written by David Gilbert
Random House, 2013; 448 pages
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9396-7

I put that *(Ampersand)* in because Blogger doesn't handle the & sign very well in post titles.  And that ampersand is very important in the title of (and, indeed, in the whole of) David Gilbert's new novel, & Sons

Publisher's description:
The funeral of Charles Henry Topping on Manhattan’s Upper East Side would have been a minor affair (his two-hundred-word obit in The New York Times notwithstanding) but for the presence of one particular mourner: the notoriously reclusive author A. N. Dyer, whose novel Ampersand stands as a classic of American teenage angst. But as Andrew Newbold Dyer delivers the eulogy for his oldest friend, he suffers a breakdown over the life he’s led and the people he’s hurt and the novel that will forever endure as his legacy. He must gather his three sons for the first time in many years—before it’s too late. 
***So begins a wild, transformative, heartbreaking week, as witnessed by Philip Topping, who, like his late father, finds himself caught up in the swirl of the Dyer family. First there’s son Richard, a struggling screenwriter and father, returning from self-imposed exile in California. In the middle lingers Jamie, settled in Brooklyn after his twenty-year mission of making documentaries about human suffering. And last is Andy, the half brother whose mysterious birth tore the Dyers apart seventeen years ago, now in New York on spring break, determined to lose his virginity before returning to the prestigious New England boarding school that inspired Ampersand. But only when the real purpose of this reunion comes to light do these sons realize just how much is at stake, not only for their father but for themselves and three generations of their family. 
My Thoughts:

This book grabbed me right from the start, even though I did have trouble with the unreliable-narrator shtick. Or in the case of & Sons, the absolutely-and-completely-implausible-narrator shtick. David Gilbert does a lot of playing around with the nature of fiction in this book, and I must admit that for a while I struggled mightily with that: I repeatedly found myself thinking, "But he couldn't possibly know that any of this happened." The "he" being Philip Topping, the book's narrator and one of the major characters.

Eventually, I started to ignore that little problem and just let the writing take over. Great idea. Gilbert is a wonderful writer, and & Sons is a mostly wonderful book.  His creation, A.N. Dyer, a sort of combination of J.D. Salinger and John Cheever, has an enormous influence on his family and their friends -- an influence that inspires much love but also has the power to destroy. 

Aside from the problems with the too-omniscient narrator, I had questions about a couple of other devices in the book. Can't really say much more than that here, because I don't want to give away plot developments, but those problems keep me from giving the book a four-star rating. But they certainly wouldn't keep me from recommending & Sons to anyone looking for fine read. This is one I can actually imagine reading again someday.

Rating: Three and a half stars

And my teaser:
"Tell him"--he wipes his nose and scrutinizes the blood--"that I'm fine, okay."
Lying back down, he closes his eyes, no longer believing the dream, it seems.
Do you want to know exactly what happened next? (p.411)

Note: This review refers to an advance reader's edition of this book, provided free of charge through Library Thing's Early Reviewer program. No other compensation was received, and no one tried to influence my opinions.




Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays: Death By a HoneyBee


This week, my teaser lines come from the first book in Abigail Keam's Josiah Reynolds mystery series, Death By a HoneyBee.
My hands were shaking as I dialed 911. "Police? You better come. I have a dead man in my beehive." (p.10) 
Just finished this one, and I'm hoping to get a short review up today or tomorrow. That is, if those bees out in our front yard don't do me in first.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by mizB at Should Be Reading. If you'd like to read more teasers, or take part yourself, just head on over to her blog.

And please feel free to leave me a link to your Teaser Tuesday post in your comment here.