Book Beginnings on Friday – Page 4

Wars of the Roses:Book One -Stormbird: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on December 27, 2024 by Margaret2 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

Wars of the Roses: Stormbird by Conn Iggulden is the first episode of The Wars of the Roses series and is one of the books I was given at Christmas.

The book begins with a Prologue set in 1337 as Edward III lay dying.

Prologue:

Anno Domini 1377

Bowls of dark royal blood lay beneath the bed, forgotten by the physician. Alice Perrers rested on a chair, panting from the effort of wrestling the king of England into his armour. The air in the room was sour with sweat and death and Edward lay like his own effigy, pale and white-bearded.

Part One – Chapter One:

Anno Domini 1443

Sixty six years after the death of Edward III

England was cold that month.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. 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.

Page 56

‘They’ve asked for the marriage to take place in the cathedral at Tours, that’s what. Land that will have the French army camped outside, ready to take possession of the price of the truce,that’s what! I’m not letting Henry walk in there, William, not while there’s life in me.’

Description from Goodreads:

King Henry V – the great Lion of England – is long dead.

In 1437, after years of regency, the pious and gentle Henry VI, the Lamb, comes of age and accedes to the English throne. His poor health and frailty of mind render him a weakling king -Henry depends on his closest men, Spymaster Derry Brewer and William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, to run his kingdom

Yet there are those, such as the Plantagenet Richard, Duke of York, who believe England must be led by a strong king if she is to survive. With England’s territories in France under threat, and rumours of revolt at home, fears grow that Henry and his advisers will see the country slide into ruin. With a secret deal struck for Henry to marry a young French noblewoman, Margaret of Anjou, those fears become all too real.

As storm clouds gather over England, King Henry and his supporters find themselves besieged abroad and at home. Who, or what can save the kingdom before it is too late?

I’ve read some of Iggulden’s historical fiction novels and loved them, so I’m looking forward to reading this in the new year.

Other books in the Wars of the Roses series are:

Stormbird (2013)
Trinity (2014) (titled Margaret of Anjou in North America)
Bloodline (2015)
Ravenspur (2016)

What do you think, does this book appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on November 29, 2024 by Margaret6 Comments

I’m featuring The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds by Alexander McCall Smith, an Isabel Dalhousie book, that I’ve borrowed from my local lbrary.

Chapter One:

‘Mozart’ said, Isabel Dalhousie. And then she added, Stinivasa Ramamjan .

But then, we can misjudge each other so easily, she thought; so easily.

Description from Amazon:

As a mother, wife, employer and editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, Isabel Dalhousie is aware that to be human is to be responsible. So when a neighbour brings her a new and potentially dangerous puzzle to solve, once again Isabel feels she has no option but to shoulder the burden.

A masterpiece painting has been stolen from Duncan Munrowe, old-fashioned philanthropist, father to two discontented children, and a very wealthy man. As Isabel enters into negotiations with the shadowy figures who are in search of a ransom, a case where heroes and villains should be clearly defined turns murky: the list of those who desire the painting – or the money – lengthens, and hasty judgement must be avoided at all cost. Morals, it turns out, are like Scottish clouds: complex, changeable and tricky to get a firm grip on; they require a sharp observational eye, a philosophical mindset, and the habit of kindness. Fortunately for those around her, Isabel Dalhousie is in possession of all three.

I’ve read some of his other Isabel Dalhousie books and enjoyed them. So I’m hoping to enjoy this one too. I really like the gentle pace of these books and what I find so fascinating is that whilst not a lot actually happens, a lot goes on in Isabel’s head.

What do you think, does this book appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

Patronage by Maria Edgeworth: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on November 22, 2024 by Margaret9 Comments

I’m featuring Patronage by Maria Edgeworth. This is one of my TBRs and I meant to include it in my Top Ten Tuesday post this week. Maria Edgeworth (1768 – 1849) was a contemporary of Jane Austen, publishing novels at the same time – Patronage was published just 5 months before Mansfield Park in 1814.

From the back cover:

Patronage was one of the most eagerly anticipated novels of Jane Austen’s day. It sold out within hours of publication.… an adventurous soap opera about the trials and fortunes of two neighbouring families in Regency England, both of which had sons and daughters setting out in the world. … a bright and mischievous critique of the way young men gained careers and young women gained husbands.

It begins:

‘How the wind is rising!’ said Rosamond. ‘God help the poor people at sea tonight!’

‘I hope, with all my heart, I hope,’ continued Rosamond, that Buckhurst will have some sense and steadfastness to refuse, but I heard his father supporting that foolish Colonel Hauton’s persuasions and urging his poor son to go with those people to Cheltenham.

Description from the publisher:

Meet the Percys and Falconers, neighbouring families, each with three sons and two daughters to launch into Regency society. The hardworking, independently minded and dutiful Percys are happy to work their way up in the world but are undermined by their scheming rivals who use Patronage to grab at instant fame and fortune. With their sons eased into lucrative but ill-suited diplomatic and clerical jobs, and their daughters bankrupting themselves to scale the heights of fashion, the Falconers are heading for a tumble; while the moral steadiness and strong family ties of the Percys allow them to attain both the heights of their chosen professions and a glittering match.

The Stars Look Down: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on November 8, 2024 by Margaret12 Comments

I’m featuring The Stars Look Down by A J Cronin. It’s my current Classics Club Spin book – the rules of the Spin are that this is the book for me to read by 18th December, 2024. So, as it has 712 pages I thought I’d better start reading it now.

Chapter One:

When Martha awoke it was still dark and bitter cold. The wind, pouring across the North Sea, struck freezingly through the cracks which old subsidences had opened in the two-roomed house. Waves pounded distantly. The rest was silence.

‘It had come upon her then, while her husband was in prison, the last indignity. And before her grown sons. Inscrutable as the darkness which layabout her, she thought rapidly. She would not have Dr. Scott, nor Mrs Reedy, the midwife , either.

Description from Goodreads

The Stars Look Down was A. J. Cronin’s fourth novel, published in 1935, and this tale of a North country mining family was a great favourite with his readers. Robert Fenwick is a miner, and so are his three sons. His wife is proud that all her four men go down the mines. But David, the youngest, is determined that somehow he will educate himself and work to ameliorate the lives of his comrades who ruin their health to dig the nation’s coal. It is, perhaps, a typical tale of the era in which it was written – there were many novels about coal mining, but Cronin, a doctor turned author, had a gift for storytelling, and in his time wrote several very popular and successful novels.

In the magnificent narrative tradition of The Citadel, Hatter’s Castle and Cronin’s other novels, The Stars Look Down is deservedly remembered as a classic of its age.

What do you think, does this book appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

Dead Man’s Time by Peter James: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on October 25, 2024 by Margaret2 Comments

I’m featuring Dead Man’s Time by Peter James, his 9th Roy Grace crime fiction thriller. It’s one of my TBRs. I started reading it a few days ago.

Brooklyn, February 1922

The boy’s father kissed him goodnight for the last time – although neither of them knew that.

‘It’s Nurse Wilson, Mr Daly. Your sister is weakening. I think you should come back quickly.’

Description from Amazon UK

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is haunted by the past in his latest case, and his private life, in Dead Man’s Time, by award winning crime writer Peter James.

A vicious robbery at a secluded Brighton mansion leaves its elderly occupant fighting for her life. Millions of pounds’ worth of valuables have been stolen.

Within days, Grace is racing against the clock, following a murderous trail that leads him from the shady antiques world of England, across Europe and all the way back to the New York waterfront’s gang struggles of 1922, chasing a killer driven by the force of one man’s greed and another man’s fury.

Although the Roy Grace novels can be read in any order, Dead Man’s Time is the ninth gripping title in the bestselling series. Enjoy more of the Brighton detective’s investigations with Want You Dead and You Are Dead.

The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on October 11, 2024 by Margaret6 Comments

I’m featuring The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell, one of my TBRs, a book that’s been sitting on my bookshelves since 2016. It’s one of her later novels, a stand-alone book.

Chapter One:

He was a handsome man. A handsome boy, his mother called him, because she started praising his looks when he was five.

Unlike other users of Baldwin’s Hill, who were afraid of pregnancy or, in the case of the girls, of not being virgins when they were married, he and Daphne went ‘all the way’, as the phrase had it. She didn’t get pregnant, though he had done nothing to prevent it.

Description from Amazon UK

Beneath the green meadows of Loughton, Essex, a dark network of tunnels has been dug. A group of children discover them. They play there. It becomes their place.

Seventy years on, the world has changed. Developers have altered the rural landscape. Friends from a half-remembered world have married, died, grown sick, moved – or disappeared.

Work on a new house called Warlock uncovers a long buried grisly secret: the bones of two severed hands are discovered in a box, and an investigation into a long-buried crime of passion begins.

The friends, who played together as children, begin to question their past. And a weary detective, more concerned with current crimes, must investigate a case of murder.