Category: First chapter

Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Today I’m featuring a book that I am currently reading for review. 

Donny Jeung considered removing his badge before sticking the hypodermic needle in his arm. It was a strange and fleeting thought. What difference did it make? He could take off the uniform and the badge and the gun, and he’d still be a cop. And he’d also still be a junkie. Such thoughts floated into the ether as he depressed the plunger and the heroin entered his veins. He leaned back against the toilet bowl, the porcelain cool on his back. Sounds and smells took on exaggerated vibrancy. The aroma of pine-scented air freshener and the acrid tang of urine swirled over the muted conversations and scraping of plates in the restaurant. Euphoria enfolded him, and for a few moments, he forgot the argument he’d had with his father earlier that evening.

I’m reading this one for a blog tour in September. I read and reviewed The Prophet back in 2012 and loved it! So I was excited to get pitched this one! This is actually the start of the prologue, and I never know how much to share so this is the first paragraph. I’m not very far into this one, but I’m definitely enjoying it so far!! I hope you come back on September 2nd to see my final thoughts

Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Today I’m featuring a book that I am currently reading for review. 

In the small, congested airport, Vivian didn’t recognize her husband. Summertime. Outside, the sun beamed white on the runway and grassy fields. Inside, the terminal was stuffy and warm. Vivian passed a group of brightly-clothed summer slowly along an eye-level, smudged window and into the crowded inlet beside the gate, all the while hunting for Nowell. Somehow, she walked right by.

She imagined the terminal was normally empty, the surrounding community being rural and unworldly. But it was the season of vacations: eastern hometowns, tropical beaches, exotic cities. Not everyone was headed to an abandoned house in the country, she thought. The travelers dispersed purposefully, trailing loved ones or heading solo toward the cars parked in rows at the front of the building. Vivian was pulled along with the crowd. Nowell was late. At first she felt irritated but quickly dismissed the feeling. It was a reunion, after all.

A large hand gripped her shoulder and she spun around.

I accepted this one for review when I was contacted about it. It immediately caught my eye and so far I’m really enjoying it! I sure hope you stop back by in a little bit when I post my final thoughts!

Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Today I’m featuring a book that I am currently reading for review. 

The shoes had made a nasty dent in my paycheck, but I wasn’t sorry I’d splurged. They were Chanel, black-textured with a peep toe and a gold zipper up the back, really more of a booty than a stiletto. And not what you’d ever call “Fuck me” shoes – there was nothing about them that would make a guy want to bed you, unless he was the type who liked a razor-sharp heel at his throat. These were what you wore on your feet when you needed armor, when the night would include a few foes half-hidden among the friends and fans. They were the kind of footwear that said you could damn well take care of yourself.

“Fuck you” shoes, I thought. That’s what they were. And I knew I might need them tonight. Because in TV there were always people who wished the worst for you.

I’m reading this one for a TLC Book Tour. I love the sass of that introduction (sorry if the language offends my readers). I hope you’ll stop back by on June 9th to see my final thoughts!

Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Today I’m featuring a book that I am currently reading for review. 

She was a beautiful child.

There was no one else left to remember, and yet her memory of the little girl she used to be wasn’t sentimental. A woman like that puts about ten thousand miles between herself and the little girl she used to be if she has any chance of getting up in the morning. “Detached,” her shrink had said on occasion, except that they never did so much of that kind of talk. (Mostly they both liked the sound of her voice, and of course he wasn’t shy about prescriptions.) She wasn’t beautiful the way the world wants children to be beautiful – pink cheeks, blonde curls. Her hair wasn’t blonde yet, and she had learned to control a blush before she learned to talk. She was beautiful the way grown women are beautiful, all slim limbs and knowing eyes, which is perhaps why men were inspired to treat her like a woman early.

I was so excited when I was contacted about this book for review and I am so intrigued by it now that I’m into it. I’m only about 50 pages into it, but I can’t hardly wait to really get into it and see what happens! I hope you’ll return in the next week or two to see my final thoughts on it!

Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Today I’m featuring a book that I have accepted for review. 

Mallen stared down at the hollow-point hypodermic needle poised over his arm, about a half-inch south of the crook in his elbow. The first needle he’d been around since quitting. The piece of rubber tied tight on his upper right arm was a sensation he hadn’t thought he’d ever experience again.

But here he fuckin’ was.

I read and reviewed the first Mark Mallen book, Untold Damage last year and loved it!! So I was thrilled when Mr. Lewis contacted me about reading his newest Mallen book, Critical Damage. I haven’t started this one yet, but those first few sentences really stick out at me because I know that Mallen is a recovering addict … is he relapsing? I’ll have to keep reading to find out 🙂 I can’t wait to get into this one and see what happens with Mallen this time around!

Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Today I’m featuring a book that I’m reading for review. 

The Van Lew mansion in Richmond’s fashionable Church Hill neighborhood had not hosted a wedding gala in many a year, and if the bride-to-be did not emerge from her attic bedroom soon, Lizzie feared it might not that day either.

Turning away from the staircase, Lizzie resisted the urge to check her engraved pocket watch for the fifth time in as many minutes and instead stepped outside onto the side portico, abandoning the mansion to her family, servants, and the apparently bashful bridal party ensconced in the servants’ quarters. Surely Mary Jane wasn’t having second thoughts. She adored Wilson Bowser, and just that morning she had declared him the most excellent man of her acquaintance. A young woman in love would not leave such a man standing at the altar.

Perhaps Mary Jane was merely nervous, or a button had come off her gown, or her flowers were not quite perfect. As hostess, Lizzie ought to go and see, but a strange reluctance held her back. Earlier that morning, when Mary Jane’s friends had arrived – young women of color like Mary Jane herself, some enslaved, some free – Lizzie had felt awkward and unwanted among them, a sensation unfamiliar and particularly unsettling to experience in her own home. None of the girls has spoken impudently to her, but after greeting her politely they had encircled Mary Jane and led her off to her attic bedroom, turning their backs upon Lizzie as if they had quite forgotten she was there. And so she was left to wait, alone and increasingly curious.

I’m reading this one as part of a TLC Book Tour. I hope you’ll come back on April 28th and see my final thoughts! So far I’m really enjoying it, I personally didn’t think the first few paragraphs were really going to draw me in, but as I finished the first chapter I was hooked!!

Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Today I’m featuring a book that I’m reading for review. 

As Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks walked along the disused railway track, he couldn’t help but imagine two young lovers kissing on the footbridge ahead, shrouded in smoke from a steam engine. All very Brief Encounter. But the age of steam was long gone, and it wasn’t love he was walking towards; it was a suspicious death.

I’m reading this one in conjunction with a blog tour hosted by the publisher. I read my first Peter Robinson book this year (Watching the Dark) and enjoyed it and was thrilled to get the opportunity to read the latest installment from Mr. Robinson. So far this book has definitely caught my interest, and I hope you return on April 16 to see my final thoughts.

Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Today I’m featuring a book that I’m reading for review. 

Bud Knox relaxed on a park bench, basking in the April sunshine, his windbreaker zipped to his chin. A placid man with thinning brown hair, Bud looked nothing at all like a bank robber.

I’m reading this one in conjunction with a TLC Book tour. This one definitely caught my attention immediately! I hope you’ll stop back by when I post my review on April 7th!

Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Today I’m featuring a book that I’m reading for review. 

He sat on the front steps of the house in Woodland Road, counting the banknotes he’d stored in the biscuit tin, all that was left of his mum’s wages. Frowning, he counted again. Ten pounds short. Oh, bloody hell. She’d found the new stash and pilfered it. Again.

Blinking back sudden tears, he scrubbed the back of his hand against his nose, trying to quell the panic rising in his stomach.

Panic and hunger. It was only Wednesday and she didn’t get paid again until Saturday. How was he going to feed the two of them on the little bit of money that was left?

I’m reading this one in conjunction with a Partners in Crime book tour. There was a prologue to this book, but I went straight with giving you Chapter 1 because I felt like the prologue wouldn’t make any sense to you (I have a love-hate relationship with prologues). Overall, this is definitely shaping up to be a great read. Hope you will come back for my tour stop on March 18th to find out my final feelings on this one!

Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Today I’m featuring a book that I’m reading for review. 

A storm is rising. He can feel it in the strange stillness of the air. There is no movement, no flutter of clothing, not a whisper of a breeze along the narrow streets of Tangier.

Beyond the lines of washing strung between the buildings, above the tiled roofs, he sees a patch of sky. There is a strange luminous quality to it, a bluish hue and lights that look almost like auroras.

He stirs a cup of warm milk, blinks, and looks out again into the changing and otherworldly colors of the sky.

Setting the spoon down onto the counter, he turns from the open window and crosses to where the boy is sitting, his face tightened in concentration at the jigsaw puzzle before him.

“Here,” his father says, holding out the cup.

The boy does not look up.

“Come on, Dillon. Drink up.”

The boy looks at him and frowns.

“No, Daddy, I don’t want to.”

I won a copy of this book through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program. It sounds really exciting by the blurb and this intro definitely caught my eye. Did it catch yours?