Category: Book Beginnings on Friday

I’m the King of the Castle: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret5 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.

I’m featuring I’m the King of the Castle by Susan Hill, a book I’ve just started to read. I don’t know when I acquired it, but it must have been over 20 years ago. It’s a secondhand hardback book, published in 1970 by Hamish Hamilton. And the reason I’ve eventually got round to reading it is because it is just right for The 1970 Club with Simon and Kaggsy during the 14th- 20th October.

Chapter One:

Three months ago , his grandmother died, and then they had moved to this house.

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.

‘He wrote home, ‘I like it here very much, it is smashing here.’

‘He is a brave little boy, Mrs Helena Kingshaw had said, reading the letter, and weeping a little.

At St Vincent’s School, Kingshaw said, ‘let me stay here for ever and ever.

Description from Amazon UK for the Mass Market paperback edition published in 2014

‘Some people are coming here today, now you will have a companion.’

But young Edmund Hooper doesn’t want anyone else in Warings, the large and rambling Victorian house he shares with his widowed father. Nevertheless Charles Kingshaw and his mother are soon installed and Hooper sets about subtly persecuting the fearful new arrival.

In the woods, Charles fights back but he knows that his rival will always win the affections of the adults – and that worse is still to come . . .

I’m the King of the Castle by Susan Hill is a chilling novel that explores the extremes of childhood cruelty. What do you think, does this book appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

The Grave Tattoo: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret6 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.

I’m featuring The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid, a book I’m currently reading.

The Prelude

All landscapes hold their own secrets.

Chapter One:

Jane Gresham stared at what she had written, then with an impatient stroke of her pen crossed it through so firmly the paper tore and split in the wake of a nib. Bloody Jake, she thought angrily.

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.

‘The black tattoos. They’re the sort that sailors used to get in the South Seas back in the old days when sailing ships put in at the islands to take on stores and trade with the natives,’ Jake explained.

Description

The award-winning and Number One bestselling Val McDermid crafts an electrifying psychological suspense thriller that mixes history, heritage and heinous crimes.

A 200 year-old-secret is now a matter of life and death.And it could be worth a fortune.

It’s summer in the Lake District and heavy rain over the fells has uncovered a bizarrely tattooed body. Could it be linked to the old rumour that Fletcher Christian, mutinous First Mate on the Bounty, had secretly returned to England?

Scholar Jane Gresham wants to find out. She believes that the Lakeland poet William Wordsworth, a friend of Christian’s, may have sheltered the fugitive and turned his tale into an epic poem – which has since disappeared.

But as she follows each lead, death is hard on her heels. The centuries-old mystery is putting lives at risk. And it isn’t just the truth that is waiting to be discovered, but a bounty worth millions …

My favourite genres are crime fiction and historical fiction. So, the combination of the two really appeals to me. What do you think, does this book appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

The Cracked Mirror: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret7 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.

I’m featuring The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre, which was published yesterday. My full review will follow shortly.

Chapter One:

There was a body in the chapel of Saint Bride’s.

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.

‘Does your being an LAPD office help us here?’ ‘Not up the coast. And not while I’m under suspension. So I need you to understand that we might have to break a few rules. This could involve theft, fraud, trespass, or all three.’

Description

FORGET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW
THIS IS NOT THAT CRIME NOVEL

You know Penny Coyne. The little old lady who has solved multiple murders in her otherwise sleepy village, despite bumbling local police. A razor-sharp mind in a twinset and tweed.

You know Johnny Hawke. Hard-bitten LAPD homicide detective. Always in trouble with his captain, always losing partners, but always battling for the truth, whatever it takes.

Against all the odds, against the usual story, their worlds are about to collide. It starts with a dead writer and a mysterious wedding invitation. It will end with a rabbit hole that goes so deep, Johnny and Penny might come to question not just whodunnit, but whether they want to know the answer.

A cross-genre hybrid of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly, The Cracked Mirror is the most imaginative and entertaining crime novel of the year, a genre-splicing rollercoaster with a poignantly emotional heart.

~~~

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

Review and Quotes: Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

Close to Death is the fifth in Anthony Horowitz’s Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery series. I have read all the earlier books, and I think it really is best if you read these books in order to fully understand the main characters and their relationship. Daniel Hawthorne, an ex-policeman, is now a private investigator, who the police call in to help with their more complicated cases. Anthony Horowitz himself appears as a fictional character, recruited by Hawthorne to write a book about him and the cases he investigates. It’s one of the books on my 20 Books of Summer list.

Book Beginnings quote:

It was four o’clock in the morning, that strange interval between night and morning when both seem to be fighting each other for control of the day ahead.

Friday 56 quote:

‘We’re not going to let them get away with it,’ Roderick exclaimed. ‘Someone should do something about him! Someone should … I don’t know! Ever since he came here, he’s been nothing but trouble.’

Synopsis from Goodreads:

In New York Times–bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fifth literary whodunit in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Detective Hawthorne is once again called upon to solve an unsolvable case—a gruesome murder in an idyllic gated community in which suspects abound.

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong and tranquillity from behind the security of a locked gate.

It is the perfect idyll until the Kenworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, a gaggle of shrieking children and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kenworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and they quickly offend every last one of their neighbours.

When Giles Kenworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator that can be called on to solve the case. Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect?

My Review:

In the earlier books Horowitz works with Hawthorne on current murders. In this book he is looking back at one of Hawthorne’s earlier cases, using Hawthorne’s case notes and recordings. Set in Riverside Close, a gated community, this is a variation on the locked room type of mystery, with all the residents being suspects for the murder of Giles Kenworthy who had been found dead, shot with a crossbow. He and his family had disrupted the peaceful lives of all the residents in one way or another, when they moved into the largest property in the Close.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, with interesting and believable characters, two of whom own a bookshop/cafe, The Tea Cosy, which specialised in the Golden Age of Crime detective stories, or modern novels that reimagined it. This link to the Golden Age of Crime novels reminded me not only of Agatha Christie’s novels, and in particular Murder on the Orient Express, which is also a version of a locked room mystery, but also of John Bude’s The Cheltenham Square Murder in which one of the residents of the Square is also killed with a bolt shot from a crossbow. Needless to say, really, there are plenty of twists and turns, numerous complications and red herrings before Horowitz gets to the bottom of the case.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.The Friday 56 is hosted by Anne@ MyHeadisFullof Books.  Find a quote from page 56.

  • Publisher‎ Penguin (11 April 2024)
  • X-Ray Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ :411 pages
  • Source: I bought my copy
  • Rating: 4/5

Black Roses: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret5 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.

I’m featuring Black Roses by Jane Thynne. It’s on my 20 Books of Summer list, a book I’ve had for several years.

Chapter One:

For a wedding it would have made a good funeral.

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.

Frau Doktor Goebbels is the wife of the Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.’

Clara nodded politely, thinking what a dreadful mouthful that title was to be saddled with.

‘But we prefer to call her the First Lady of the Reich,

Synopsis from Amazon:

Berlin, 1933. Warning bells ring across Europe as Hitler comes to power. Clara Vine, an attractive young Anglo-German actress, arrives in Berlin to find work at the famous Ufa studios. Through a chance meeting, she is unwillingly drawn into a circle of Nazi wives, among them Magda Goebbels, Anneliese von Ribbentrop and Goering’s girlfriend Emmy Sonnemann. As part of his plan to create a new pure German race, Hitler wants to make sweeping changes to the lives of women, starting with the formation of a Reich Fashion Bureau, instructing women on what to wear and how to behave. Clara is invited to model the dowdy, unflattering clothes.

Then she meets Leo Quinn who is working for British intelligence and who sees in Clara the perfect recruit to spy on her new elite friends, using her acting skills to win their confidence. But when Magda Goebbels reveals to Clara a dramatic secret and entrusts her with an extraordinary mission, Clara feels threatened, compromised, desperately caught between her duty towards – and growing affection for – Leo, and the impossibly dangerous task Magda has forced upon her.

~~~

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

Close to Death: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret4 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.

I’m featuring Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz, book 5 in the Hawthorne and Horowitz murder mystery series. It’s on my 20 Books of Summer list.

Book Beginning:

It was four o’clock in the morning, that strange interval between night and morning when both seem to be fighting each other for control of the day ahead.

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.

‘We’re not going to let them get away with it,’ Roderick exclaimed. ‘Someone should do something about him! Someone should … I don’t know! Ever since he came here, he’s been nothing but trouble.’

Synopsis from Goodreads:

In New York Times–bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fifth literary whodunit in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Detective Hawthorne is once again called upon to solve an unsolvable case—a gruesome murder in an idyllic gated community in which suspects abound

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate.

It is the perfect idyll until the Kenworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, a gaggle of shrieking children and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kenworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and they quickly offend every last one of their neighbours.

When Giles Kenworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator that can be called on to solve the case.

Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect?

~~~

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