The Girl on The Train by Paula Hawkins - A Review

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is one of the summer reads for my face to face book club. It is well written, captivating and yet was hard for me to read.

Rachael rides the train into London each day. She is a people watcher, well maybe just a watcher of certain people. She goes by the house she and Tom once lived in. Now he is there with Anna and a baby daughter. She is obsessed with watching and looking and wondering what is going on in the house that was once her dream home. Five houses down at number 23, lives another young couple, Jason and Jess she has named them. She doesn't know them, but somehow feels connected. They are the couple she had hoped she and Tom would be. She watches, she looks, she imagines their life behind the sliding glass door to the house just like the one she lived in, number 15.


View all my reviews

I will link this review to Women's Fiction Reading Challenge

hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. 

Taking a Posting Break

I will be taking a break from posting. You may have noticed that I have been absent already.

I will still review as I complete titles that fit my challenges.

Read the Books You Buy
Women's Fiction Challenge
What's in a Name 2016
Cruisin' Thru the Cozies

But not much else. I've hit a wall. I feel empty and inadequate. So until I recharge this blog will be a bit vacant.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

The Quilter's Homecoming by Jennifer Chiaverini

The Quilter's Homecoming is an Elm Creek Quilts story, #10 in the series. Elizabeth and Henry are newlyweds and are embarking on a wondrous adventure. Henry has invested his entire savings in a ranch in the Arboles Valley, north of Los Angeles. Elizabeth packs her precious wedding gifts in the Wedding Ring quilt her aunts and friends made for her. She dreams of sleeping under that special quilt for the rest of their married life in the house of Triumph Ranch.

Her dreams are broken as she and Henry learn that have been swindled out of their money and the deed they hold is worthless. With no resources to return home to Pennsylvania, their pride forces them to take jobs with the family that really does own the ranch they had hoped to own. Henry struggles, but Elizabeth, showing true Bergstrom family resilience, vows to make the best of the situation. As she deals with being a hired hand and living in less than meager surroundings, she takes a found quilt in hand and begins to sew her story into the worn bed covering.

As she becomes more and more familiar with the neighbors and the family they work for, Elizabeth befriends a young mother, Sophia Barclay. Henry is given more and more responsibility on the Lundstrom farm and their life in California becomes the life they had hoped for, just not in the way they had originally envisioned.

Glory Over Everything by Kathleen Grissom

If you read The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, then you have met Belle, the kitchen slave,  Sukey, a slave infant taken from her mother and left at Tall Oakes,  Lavinia, a white endentured servant working at Tall Oakes and  Jamie Pyke, the son of Belle and the master of Tall Oaks, Marshall Pyke.

Now we learn the rest of the story as Jamie is living in Philadelphia as a white silversmith. His story continues as he is adopted by a wealthy white family in Philadelphia and on their passing, inherits their fortune. All the while he is keeping his secret about his heritage. But secrets can't be kept forever and eventually James Burton must face his past.

This book is so well written, just like the first one and I recommend it to any one who likes historical fiction around the early 1800's. I listened to this story as an audio and the narrators were fabulous.

Although this story in mainly about Jamie Pyke's life, a good part of the story involves Sukey and a young woman named Addie, whose family comes to his rescue in a most important way. So I am going to link it to Women's Fiction Reading Challenge because both of these women shaped the future of black's in America at a time when the nation was struggling with the wrong of slavery.

Read or listen to this story and The Kitchen House. They do not have to be read together or in succession, but your experience will be enhanced if you read them that way.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - 6/21/16 The Quilter's Homecoming

Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts this Tuesday meme. It is a place to share the first paragraph in the first chapter of a book you are reading or hope to get to soon. It is a great place to see what others are reading and add to your ever growing list of title to explore. So let's share. Write a post and then go link up at Diane's blog.

The Quilter's Homecoming
Jennifer Chiaverini
Simon & Schuster Paperbacks 2007

Chapter One
1924



As her father's car rumbled across the bridge over Elm Creek and emerged from the forest of bare-limbed trees onto a broad snow-covered lawn of the Bergstrom estate, Elizabeth Bergstrom was seized by the sudden and unshakable certainty that she should not have come to this place. She should have stayed in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to help her brother run the hotel, even though business invariably slowed during the holiday week. Or she should have offered to help care for her sister's newborn twins. Even celebrating Christmas alone would have been preferable to returning to Elm Creek Manor. Her lifelong feelings of warmth and comfort toward the family home had suddenly given way to dread and foreboding. She would have to pass the week next door to Henry, knowing that he was near, and waiting in vain for him to come to her.

What do you think?  Continue or pass?  This is the 10th in the series of Elm Creek Quilts  by Jennifer Chiaverini. I enjoyed the first nine, and then did not continue. Not for lack of interest or want, there are just so many books that catch my interest. But I was given a copy of The Lost Quilter, #14 in the series and I must read them in order.  That's just me. So off to the library I went to check out #10, #11, #12, #13.

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The Cat Sitter's Whiskers by Blaize and John Clement

The Cat Sitter's Whiskers by Blaize Clement
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Dixie Hemingway lives in Sarasota Florida. She is a cat/dog sitter for the mostly rich and famous who live on Siesta Key, a sliver of sand that hugs the shoreline of Sarasota. She lives in the upstairs apartment over the garage of her older brother's house. Micheal and his partner Paco, are her port in a storm. And she has had a few storms. She used to be a police officer, but after her husband and young daughter were killed in a car accident, she couldn't go back.  That doesn't keep her from having a cop's instincts. She reads people well, most people like her and she is fearless. This can help or hinder her in the situations that seem to surround her.

I really enjoyed this book. Even though it is the 10th in the Dixie Hemingway series, I did not feel as if I had missed anything. The author uses the main characters, memories and thought processes to add her back story to the current story. I will read more of this cozy mystery series. Thanks to Cathy at Kittling Books for the giveaway.

I am linking this up to

You can find this challenge here,

Cruisin' Thru the Cozies 2016 is hosted by Yvonne at Socrates' Book Reviews

 And you can check out this challenge at The Worm Hole, this link will go to the page "Profession".

Or you can see all my challenges by clicking on  the 2016 Challenges tab at the top of my blog page.

Review: Chesapeake Song by Brenda Lane Richardson

Her thirteen-year marriage troubled by hurt and doubts, Tamra Lane embarks on a spiritual journey into her past and draws strength from the experiences of her mother and grandmother.

Although I felt this book started slowly, I grew more and more drawn into the story. It is a love story that explores the paths our lives take based on our childhood, or heritage, or experiences. Tamra loves her husband. She loves her children. How then can she walk away in search for herself. Ms. Richardson uses flashbacks to explore Tamra's life in Nanticoke Maryland, her family relationships and the consequences of her life and her relationships. The story involves love, marriage, family obligations, careers, substance abuse, life and death. It is a story worth exploring and I was happy with the ending. It's just life after all. 

Although I purchased this book a long while ago, so it doesn't meet the criteria for Read The Books  You Buy Challenge 2016 hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, it does meet the guidelines for the 2016 Women's Fiction Reading Challenge.  

This book is out of print, but you may be able to find it at your library or used book store. When I looked today, Amazon has it on sale for $5.60 and only 1 left!!  Just FYI!

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Wondrous Words Wednesday

Kathy at Bermuda Onion hosts Wondrous Words Wednesday. A chance to highlight words you find while reading or occasionally by listening. Share your words then link up with Kathy's blog so we can all learn a new wondrous word.

Nubian   noun  ( as an adjective: pertaining to the peoples of Nubia)

                                 This sentence is from page 31 of Chesapeake Song by Brenda Lane Richardson. 

' Just behind her, a nut-brown teenage girl with a Nubian face, lids heavily lined, stares toward the dark windows of the limo."

1. a native or inhabitant of Nubia

2. a member of one of the group of dark-skinned peoples that formed a powerful empire between Egypt and Ethiopia from the 6th to the 14th centuries.  (Modern day Egypt and Sudan)

I haven't found many wondrous and unknown words this week. I haven't been doing a lot of reading. So here is another from my Word-of-the-Day emails. 

stolid    adjective

 :  having or expressing little or no sensibility     

 :   unemotional

which let me to another word that I do not use regularly: 

phlegmatic    adjective

 :  not easily upset, excited or angered. 

What wondrous words did you find this week? 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

The Hurricane Sisters Dorothea Benton Frank Book Club May 2016 selection

The Hurricane Sisters 

 Dorothea Benton Frank

I am a fan of Dorothea Benton Frank. I have never visited South Carolina but for some reason the Lowcountry interests me. It could be because it seems so different from where I am from, dry high plains desert, Wyoming. Ya think?

In this story, we are introduced to three headstrong women each with a secret and each with a contentious relationship to the others. Maisie Pringle is 80 and a bit eccentric. She still lives alone. Well ,not exactly, her daughter and son-in-law, Liz and Clayton have hired a younger man (he is 65) to be her driver. Skipper has a llama farm. What could be more eccentric than that?  They seem to get along well.

Liz and Clayton’s marriage has stale-mated in a classic way. She is involved in an emotionally demanding career, and her stock broker husband is basically absent and self absorbed. They have two children who refer to them as The Impossibles.  Ashley is an aspiring artist, living in the family beach house and Ivy, their son, is a kind, caring successful young man living in California with his partner, James.

Ashley’s personal life this summer includes a budding relationship with an aspiring local politician. She can see herself as the next Jackie Kennedy.  Porter sees her as his next conquest. Trouble!! Even though her mother is an expert in the field of domestic abuse, Ashley misses all the signs in her effort to fulfill her dream of a future in Camelot.

As the summer storms keep brewing, the stormy relationship of these three women and their partners and friends comes to a dramatic conclusion. 

I liked this book for the most part. At times I felt it was a bit stilted as each Mother/daughter relationship played out. I have a bit of familiarity about the secrets revealed and felt a little of it did not ring true. I will reveal no spoilers here, but I found Liz and Clayton hard to grasp. That being said, I liked the book a lot and will wait to post this review until my book club has their discussion Tuesday. 5-17. Just to keep you informed, my book club did not much care for this story. Several  said they "couldn't relate to the characters" because they were wealthy??  Don't we sometimes read books to live the lives others live, to see how the other half gets by?  Oh, well!  Like I always say, "It is good we all don't have the same taste in books, food, or men!" I recommend this book. 

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Hurricane Sisters

Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts this Tuesday meme. It is a place to share the first paragraph in the first chapter of a book you are reading or hope to get to soon. It is a great place to see what others are reading and add to your ever growing list of title to explore. So let's share. Write a post and then go link up at Diane's blog.

The Hurricane Sisters
Dorothea Benton Frank
Harper Collins April 2015


Prologue

According to Liz

My husband, Clayton, and I were at the police station getting my mother, Maisie, out of jail for brushing up against the wrong side of the law. Her actual charges were still unclear. She claims it is not against any law in the state of South Carolina to take a llama for a walk on the open road. He was, after all, on a leash. The local police beg to differ, saying it is an act of animal cruelty, endangerment, and reckless behavior. Legal or not, it wasn't normal. I was glad they brought her in to the police station until I could get there because her behavior surely demonstrates a lack of sound judgement. Or not. Maisie was crazy like a fox and we all knew it. So I sat and waited while Clayton made it right between the Town of Mount Pleasant and Maisie by writing a check. 


So have you read The Hurricane Sisters?  Would you read on?  Have you read any of Dorothea Benton Frank's other novels?  


Stay Busy and Stay Happy

April Month in Review

Again I am behind in my book reading goal. Goodreads says I am4 books behind. I have read a total of 16 books. Twenty would keep me on my goal of 5 books per month. Yikes. I had better kick it in gear, again!



APRIL:

13.  Bossypants by Tina Fey

     1. New to me author
     2. Libary print book
     3. Non-Fiction, Memoir
     4, What's in a Name 2016 challenge


14. The Chili Queen  by Sandra Dallas

    1. Women's Literary Fiction Challenge
    2. Libary print book
    3. What's in A Name 2016 challenge


15. Witch is When It All Began  by Adele Abbott

    1.  New to me author
    2.  E-book
    3.  Read the Books You Buy challenge
    4.  Women't Literary Fiction Challenge
    5.   Cruisin' Thru the Cozies Challenge


16.   Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

        1. New to me author
        2. Audio book
        3. Read the Books You Buy Challenge.


I am linking up with Kathryn's at Book Date for Month in Review.


Stay Busy and Stay Happy
Judy

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 5-2-16

It's Monday What Are You Reading is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. Share what you are reading, what you read recently or what you hope to get to in the coming week and then link up with Kathryn at Book Date. It is a great place to see what is going on in the blogosphere and to add to your reading lists.

On my phone/Kindle: 

Goodreads:

Amy Poehler is hosting a dinner party and you're invited! Welcome to the audiobook edition of Amy Poehler's Yes Please. The guest list is star-studded with vocal appearances from Carol Burnett, Seth Meyers, Michael Schur, Patrick Stewart, Kathleen Turner, and even Amy's parents—Yes Please is the ultimate audiobook extravaganza.

Also included? A one night only live performance at Poehler's Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Hear Amy read a chapter live in front of a young and attractive Los Angeles audience.

While listening to Yes Please, you'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll become convinced that your phone is trying to kill you. Don't miss this collection of stories, thoughts, ideas, lists, and haikus from the mind of one of our most beloved entertainers. Offering Amy's thoughts on everything from her "too safe" childhood outside of Boston to her early days in New York City, her ideas about Hollywood and "the biz," the demon that looks back at all of us in the mirror, and her joy at being told she has a "face for wigs"—Yes Please is chock-full of words, and wisdom, to live by.

Goodreads gives us credit for 8 pages yet I will spend 10 hrs listening to this audiobook. It seems a bit unfair to me.


Audiobook, Unabridged, 8 pages

Published October 28th 2014 by HarperAudio


Print Book:






Goodreads: 

Hurricane season begins early and rumbles all summer long, well into September. Often people's lives reflect the weather and The Hurricane Sisters is just such a story.

Once again Dorothea Benton Frank takes us deep into the heart of her magical South Carolina Lowcountry on a tumultuous journey filled with longings, disappointments, and, finally, a road toward happiness that is hard earned. There we meet three generations of women buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, at eighty, is a force to be reckoned with because she will have the final word on everything, especially when she's dead wrong. Her daughter, Liz, is caught up in the classic maelstrom of being middle-age and in an emotionally demanding career that will eventually open all their eyes to a terrible truth. And Liz's beautiful twenty-something daughter, Ashley, whose dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future keeps them all at odds.

Luckily for Ashley, her wonderful older brother, Ivy, is her fierce champion but he can only do so much from San Francisco where he resides with his partner. And Mary Beth, her dearest friend, tries to have her back but even she can't talk headstrong Ashley out of a relationship with an ambitious politician who seems slightly too old for her.

Actually, Ashley and Mary Beth have yet to launch themselves into solvency. Their prospects seem bleak. So while they wait for the world to discover them and deliver them from a ramen-based existence, they placate themselves with a hare-brained scheme to make money but one that threatens to land them in huge trouble with the authorities.

So where is Clayton, Liz's husband? He seems more distracted than usual. Ashley desperately needs her father's love and attention but what kind of a parent can he be to Ashley with one foot in Manhattan and the other one planted in indiscretion? And Liz, who's an expert in the field of troubled domestic life, refuses to acknowledge Ashley's precarious situation. Who's in charge of this family? The wake-up call is about to arrive.

The Lowcountry has endured its share of war and bloodshed like the rest of the South, but this storm season we watch Maisie, Liz, Ashley, and Mary Beth deal with challenges that demand they face the truth about themselves. After a terrible confrontation they are forced to rise to forgiveness, but can they establish a new order for the future of them all?

Frank, with her hallmark scintillating wit and crisp insight, captures how a complex family of disparate characters and their close friends can overcome anything through the power of love and reconciliation. This is the often hilarious, sometimes sobering, but always entertaining story of how these unforgettable women became The Hurricane Sisters.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Witch Is When It All Began by Adele Abbott

Witch Is When It All Began  
Adele Abbott

Jill Gooder is a P.I., because her father was and she took over the business. She is not very successful at the present time, and so decides to take on a job to find a “serial killer”. At least her client thinks a serial killer murdered his girlfriend, the police do not. As in most cozy mysteries, the protagonist sticks her nose where it doesn’t belong. She can’t help it however, she has a job to do.


Enter a quirky office assistant, an adopted one-eyed cat, a police detective who seems to hate her, and a sister who is trying to hook her up with just about anyone. As Jill deals with all these characters in her life, she discovers that her biological mother is a Witch. That means she too is a witch, at least that is what her mother says from her deathbed, “You’re a witch!”

This is a fun story. I grew up watching “Bewitched” on television and this books reminds me of Samantha and Darren and their exploits. I was a bit put off by the slang words I did not know, but because I read it on my Kindle, I could look up the meanings without too much trouble. If you are looking for a light easy read, this is one for you. There are more installments in the series and I will check them out as well. I am adding this to my “Cruisin’ Thru the Cozies” challenge, hosted by Yvonne at Socrate's Book Reviews.

This also will fit for Read What You Buy and Women's Fiction Reading Challenge. A three-fer!! 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 4/25/16

It's Monday What Are You Reading is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. Share what you are reading, what you read recently or what you hope to get to in the coming week and then link up with Kathryn at Book Date. It is a great place to see what is going on in the blogosphere and to add to your reading lists.

Finished but no review yet:

It was pretty good, but lots of terms and sayings that were unfamiliar. Luckily it was on my kindle, so looking them up was easy. 

Over 1/2 way : 

I have been listening on my phone ( a new deal to me) and carrying it everywhere. 5 hours left and I have it on 1.5 speed. I am loving Wil Wheaton's narration!! 

If I finish this one, I am not sure what to start next. Maybe - 

 It is the May book for my book club:

 This has been on my Kindle for a long time:

 I love Kristin Hannah and this is one that I have been wanting to start!

I borrowed ( or just took with her permission) this from my youngest granddaughter. She could not finish it, and I have not started it. But I want to read it before seeing the movie. 

Any suggestions as to which one I should read next?  

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

I am prepping for a Quilt Retreat the first weekend in May. Plus DH has out patient surgery on the 4th. Hoping to get some reading time in. Wish me luck. 

The Chili Queen by Sandra Dallas

The Chili Queen

Sandra Dallas

Addie French's life hasn't been easy. But when she meets Emma Roby on the train to Nalgitas NM, she can't help but take this poor unsuspecting woman under her wing. Emma is going to Nalgitas to marry a man she has only corresponded with.  Addie is sure that Emma needs her help, and when the prospective groom fails to pick Emma up at the train depot, Addie takes her in at The Chili Queen, her brothel.   As their friendship develops or at least changes, secrets and schemes come to light. Each woman learns something about the other and the plot thickens. I wasn't completely surprised at the ending, and I enjoyed Ms. Dallas' writing. Her descriptive words take you to the desert barrenness of New Mexico and to the mountain towns of Colorado.  Although, Margot of Joyfully Retired           (commenting on my First Chapter First Paragraph post) was correct, I did not like the characters, Dallas did an awesome job telling us about each of them.

I am linking this review to What's In A Name 2016 challenge and Kathryn's Women's Fiction Reading Challenge. 



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First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - The Chili Queen

Every Tuesday is the day to share the first paragraph or two of a book you are reading or want to read soon. The event is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea. Let's share!

 The Chili Queen

Sandra Dallas

St Martins Press  2002

one


As the train pulled into the shabby station at Palestine, Kansas, the pinch-faced farmers and their wives in their rusty black-wool best lined up along the tracks like the teeth of a rake. In the Kansas heat, three boys slumped on an empty baggage cart in the shade of the depot, too listless even to tie a tin can to a cat's tail. A bitch in heat wouldn't draw a yellow dog under the sun, Addie French thought, as she shaded her eyes from the hurtful glare of the prairie, which was bleached the dirty white of worn underwear. She put a handkerchief to her nose, as if to block out the stench of sweat and barnyard and old pancakes that clung to the farmers' clothes. Although she had spent well over half her thirty-six years off the land, Addie never forgot the sour smells of the farm. She wiped her damp face and neck with a soiled handkerchief, leaving behind streaks of dirt on her wet skin.

What do you think?  Would you read on?  I am already enamored with Addie French and Emma Roby and I am only on page 13!



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TBR Triple Dog Dare vs Read The Books You Buy -

       Either way I am a Winner!!





Yesterday, after reading Laurel-Rain Snow's post about Reading The Books You Buy, I had to double check a couple of the titles I included on my list. As it turns out, several of the books on my Kindle were purchased before June 2015. Thanks Amazon for keeping track for me. The titles will work to complete the TBR Triple Dog Dare of only reading books already owned from January 1st until April 1st. But they are too old to be included on Kathryn's Read The Books You Buy Challenge. So check the corrections on my pages tab, 2016 Challenges.


I am going to continue to read some of my old titles whether they fit a challenge or not. Some will work for Women's Fiction Challenge and maybe I can even find one that fits a category in What's In A Name 2016. Maybe I'll start my own personal EBook challenge!


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Of Moths and Butterflies by V.R. Christensen

Of Moths & Butterflies by V. R. Christensen

Goodreads Synopsis:

Archer Hamilton is a collector of rare and beautiful insects. Gina Shaw is a servant in his uncle’s house. Clearly out of place in the position in which she has been discovered, she becomes a source of fascination . . . and curiosity. 
A girl with a blighted past and a fortune she deems a curse, Gina has lowered herself in order to find escape from her family and their scheming designs. But when she is found, the stakes suddenly become dire. 

All Gina wants is the freedom to live her life as she would wish. All her aunts want is the money that comes with her. But there is more than one way to trap an insect. An arranged marriage might turn out profitable for more parties than one. 

Mr. Hamilton is about to make the acquisition of a lifetime. But will the price be worth it? Can a woman captured and acquired learn to love the man who has bought her? 
All Gina wants is the freedom to live her life as she would wish. All her aunts want is the money that comes with her. But there is more than one way to trap an insect. An arranged marriage might turn out profitable for more parties than one. 
Mr. Hamilton is about to make the acquisition of a lifetime. But will the price be worth it? Can a woman captured and acquired learn to love the man who has bought her? 

My Thoughts:

A bit slow at the beginning, I soon found this story hard to put down. Ms. Christensen has obviously done her homework regarding the restrained dialogue and the emotions of the 1880’s. The dialogue in this story frustrated me a lot. As was the times, no one spoke straightforwardly.

Women had no rights, and unless married were destined to a life “in service”.   Imogene Everard lived a life much like servitude in her uncle’s house. She was his bait, as he enticed unethical businessmen to his home. When he dies, his will surprises everyone, including Imogene. But she wants nothing of her uncle’s ill-gotten gains and makes a hasty decision regarding her future.

Her future seems destined for failure. No matter what decisions she makes, something always goes array.  This fact was a little disheartening. As the story progresses I began to root for Imogene or Gina as she was known to Archer Hamilton.  Archer treated Gina with care and respect. Like the insects he acquired and displayed, he too was caught up in a web of family secrets.  As their stories became more intertwined, the secrets threatened to be revealed and I couldn’t put the book down until I discovered the outcome.

February Month in Review

Goodreads reports that I  am one book behind in reaching my goal of 60 books this year. Since I have only read 8 books that really means I am 2 books behind if I aim for 5 books per month. January is here.


February:

6. Here Today, GoneTamale by Rebecca Adler

    1. New to me author
    2. Women's Literary Fiction Challenge
    3. Cozy Mystery Challenge
    4.  Paperback
    5. Already Owned: TBR Triple Dog Dare
 

7. Deep Down Dark by Hector Tobar

    1.  New to me author
    2.  Non-fiction
    3.  E-book
    4.  Already Owned: TBR Triple Dog Dare
    5.  Read the Books You Buy Challenge


8.  The Liar's Club by Mary Karr

       1. New to me author
       2. Memoir  by a woman
       3. Paperback
       4. Already Owned:  TBR Triple Dog Dare
       5. Read the Books You Buy Challenge


I am linking this quick review with Kathryn at Book Date.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intro - The Liar's Club by Mary Karr

Every Tuesday Diane hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros where she shares the first paragraph sometimes two from a book she is reading or thinking about reading soon. Share a book you are interested in reading and link up at Diane's blog, Bibliophile by the Sea. 

The Liar's Club

Mary Karr

Viking Press 1995

Chapter 1

My sharpest memory is of a single instant surrounded by dark. I was seven and our family doctor knelt before me where I sat on a mattress on the bare floor. He wore a yellow golf shirt unbuttoned so that sprouts of hair showed in a V shape on his chest. I had never seen him in anything but a white starched shirt and a gray tie.  The changed unnerved me. He was pulling at the hem of my favorite nightgown-a pattern of Texas bluebonnets bunched into nosegays tied with ribbon against a field of nappy white cotton. I had tucked my knees under it to make a tent. He could easily have yanked the thing over my head with one motion, but something made him gentle. "Show me the marks," he said. "Come on now. I won't hurt you." He had watery blue eyes behind thick glasses, and a mustache that looked like a caterpillar. " Please? Just pull this up and show me where it hurts," he said. He held a piece of hem between thumb and forefinger. I wasn't crying and I don't remember any pain, but he talked to me in that begging voice he used when he had a long needle hidden behind his back. I liked him but didn't much trust him. The room I shared with my sister was dark, but I didn't fancy hiking  my gown up with strangers milling around in the living room.

What do you think? Would you read on?  Have you already read this one?   It is the next read for my face to face book club.


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