Friday Book Snippets combining Book Beginnings on Friday and the Friday 56, is co-hosted by Anne@HeadFullofBooks and Olivia at Bemused and Bookish.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book’s opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

I’m currently reading Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey, a novel about the Ashbys, an English country-squire family, first published in 1949.

Book beginning, Chapter One:

‘Aunt Bree,’ said Jane, breathing heavily into her soup, was Noah a cleverer back-room boy than Ulysses, or was Ulysses a cleverer back-room boy than Noah?’

Second snippet: Page 6

How shadowy was he to her: the kind solemn little boy who should have been coming into his inheritance next month? She tried to call up his face in front of her but there was only a blur. He had been small and immature for his age, but otherwise he was just an Ashby. Less an individual than a family resemblance.

Description from Amazon UK:

Young orphan, Brat Farrar, closely resembles the dead heir to Latchetts, a centuries-old family estate on the south coast of England. Against his better judgement, Brat is persuaded to pose as Patrick Ashby, the true heir, and claim the inheritance. Most of the Ashbys accept the imposter, only one suspects him, but his reasons are so strange that Brat comes to believe something very evil has happened to Patrick…