Teaser Tuesdays - April 24, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The teaser this week is for a classic which comes highly recommended by my fellow reading friends!

---

My teaser this week: 

"Let him go," the surgeon said to her, adding, without rancor, "because frankly, Mister Becker, you're being neither use nor ornament here.  If you can help the situation, please do.  But be warned.  Two minutes after he attacked your wife, the man killed a nurse."

- page 151 (ARC), The Bedlam Detective by Stephen Gallagher (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

Madmen see monsters – and monsters hide in plain sight

  From a basement office in London’s notorious Bethlehem Hospital, Sebastian Becker investigates wealthy eccentrics whose dubious mental health may render them unable to manage their own affairs. His interview with rich landowner Sir Owain Lancaster, whose sanity has been in question since a disastrous scientific adventure in the Amazon killed his family and colleagues, coincides with the disappearance of two young local girls. When the children are found slain, Lancaster claims that the same dark forces that devastated his family have followed him home. It is not the first time that children have come to harm in his rural countryside town, though few are willing to speak of incidents from the past. Becker must determine whether this mad nobleman is insane and a murderer, or if some even more sinister agency is at work.

   Struggling on his small salary, and with unexpected help from a son who needs special care, Becker and his wife make sacrifices so Becker can stay on the case after an innocent man is convicted of the crime. The answers he seeks may be found with the assistance of the local investigator and a young suffragette who fled Arnmouth, but couldn’t flee the horrors she encountered there. 

   From dank asylums to the lush and treacherous Amazon, through the makeshift studios of the early film industry and a traveling fair of freaks and illusions, Sebastian Becker’s search for answers brings him face to face with madmen and monsters, both imagined and real. Confronting immense danger in his hunt for the truth, he will explore murder, tragedy, and the tempestuous depths of his own mind.

---

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - April 17, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

---

My teaser this week: 

"And where would she have had the chance to do these...these disgusting things if it hadn't been for you?" my grandmother shouted, holding up the photographs to Betsy's whimpering face.

"She would never have even thought to go to these places, be around these people, if you hadn't introduced her to it."

- page 212, The Legacy of Eden by Nelle Davy (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

"To understand what it meant to be a Hathaway, you'd first have to see Aurelia."

For generations, Aurelia was the crowning glory of more than three thousand acres of Iowa farmland and golden cornfields. The estate was a monument to matriarch Lavinia Hathaway's dream to elevate the family name - no matter what relative or stranger she had to destroy in the process. It was a desperation that wrought the downfall of the Hathaways - and the once prosperous farm.

Now the last inhabitant of the decaying old home has died - alone. None of the surviving members of the Hathaway family want anything to do with the farm, the land, or the memories.

Especially Meredith Pincetti. Now living in New York City, for seventeen years Lavinia's youngest grandchild has tried to forget everything about her family and her past. But with the receipt of a pleading letter, Meredith is again thrust into conflict with the legacy that destroyed her family's once-great name. Back at Aurelia, Meredith must confront the rise and fall of the Hathaway family... and her own part in their mottled history.

"Our farm was like the world when people still thought it was flat. And when you left it, it was as if you had simply sailed too far and fallen off the surface into the void."

---

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - April 3, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The teaser this week is for a classic which comes highly recommended by my fellow reading friends!

---

My teaser this week: 

My mother was happy because I was happy, but she was also suspicious about his sudden interest in me.  My bruises were gone, and the emotional scars were fading, or so I thought.

- page 78 (ARC - releases April 10, 2012), Calico Joe by John Grisham (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

A surprising and moving novel of fathers and sons, forgiveness and redemption, set in the world of Major League Baseball…
 
Whatever happened to Calico Joe?
 
It began quietly enough with a pulled hamstring. The first baseman for the Cubs AAA affiliate in Wichita went down as he rounded third and headed for home. The next day, Jim Hickman, the first baseman for the Cubs, injured his back. The team suddenly needed someone to play first, so they reached down to their AA club in Midland, Texas, and called up a twenty-one-year-old named Joe Castle. He was the hottest player in AA and creating a buzz.

In the summer of 1973 Joe Castle was the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone had ever seen.  The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas dazzled Cub fans as he hit home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shattered all rookie records.

Calico Joe quickly became the idol of every baseball fan in America, including Paul Tracey, the young son of a hard-partying and hard-throwing Mets pitcher. On the day that Warren Tracey finally faced Calico Joe, Paul was in the stands, rooting for his idol but also for his Dad. Then Warren threw a fastball that would change their lives forever…

In John Grisham’s new novel the baseball is thrilling, but it’s what happens off the field that makes CALICO JOE a classic.

---

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - February 28, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

---

My teaser this week: 

He lived for a year with his Uncle Jimmy, who well into his fifties felt happiest among like-minded adolescents with whom he could share his large collections of guns and knives, Chasey Lain videos, and Warlords III and Dungeonmaster paraphernalia.  But Jimmy also worshiped Elvis Presley at a shrine in one corner of his bedroom, and Billy, who never got it through his head that Jimmy wasn't joking about Elvis, finally desecrated the shrine in some grievous and irreversible manner that Jimmy afterward refused to talk about, and was put out on the street.

- page 343, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man-or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.

---

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - February 21, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The teaser this week is for an author the cover dubs as "Iceland's answer to Stiegg Larsson".  I must admit, this one is definitely pulling me in.

---

My teaser this week: 

 
"But there's no way Dad killed anyone and put them in the basement that night.  There were no bodies lying around when I put the box there a couple of days later."

- page 245 (ARC), Ashes to Dust by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (The Book Depository / Amazon) - Release date March 27, 2012

Goodreads description:

Named One of the Year’s Top Ten Crime Books in the UK… 

A Masterwork of Suspense from "Iceland’s Crime Queen" 

(The Scotsman) In 1973, a volcanic eruption buried an entire Icelandic village in lava and ash. Now this macabre tourist attraction proves deadly once again—when the discovery of fresh bodies casts a shadow of suspicion onto Markus Magnusson, a man accused of killing his childhood sweetheart. His attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir finds that her client has a most inventive story to tell. But the locals seem oddly reluctant to back him up… 

Filled with unforgettable characters, unexpected twists, and superb psychological suspense, Ashes to Dust is a superlative thriller from an acclaimed master of Nordic fiction.

---

An even better twist on what was in the box is revealed near the beginning of the book - pretty creepy!  :)

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - February 14, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The teaser this week is for a classic which comes highly recommended by my fellow reading friends!

---

My teaser this week: 

"Life is not all cinema, all dancing and battles.  You must learn to be strong and practical.  You do not need stars and moonlight and music to build a family, to lead a good life."

- page 150 (ARC), Other Waters by Eleni N. Gage (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

When her grandmother dies in India, a family squabble over property results in a curse that drifts across continents and threatens Maya's life. Or so her father says-- Maya (being a modern woman, an American, and a doctor, for goodness' sake) doesn't believe in curses, Brahman, or otherwise. But when her father suffers a heart attack, her sister miscarries, and her career and relationship both start to falter, Maya starts to worry. A trip back to India with her best friend Heidi, Maya reasons, will be just what's needed to remove the curse, save her family, and to put her own life back in order. Thus begins a journey into Maya's parallel world-- an India filled with loving and annoying relatives, vivid colors, and superstitious customs--a cross-cultural, transcontinental search to for a chance to find real love.

---

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - February 7, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The teaser this week is for a classic which comes highly recommended by my fellow reading friends!

---

My teaser this week: 

She pulled Cecilia to her and they cried together.  She took her to a private doctor in Exeter who wouldn't talk to neighbors, but it was, as she strongly suspected too late: otherwise, she knew with a sense of steel entering her blood that she would have marched her off for an abortion and paid for it without telling Patrick, who would have strenuously objected on lapsed religious grounds.

- page 179 (ARC), You by Joanna Bricoe (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

Dora Bannan hopes for a new life when she moves her husband and their three children to the wild moorland. She finds a job teaching music at a progressive school, where she also enrolls the children- their fellow students the progeny of back-to-the-land bohemians. But when the school's elegant art teacher, Elisabeth Dahl, offers Dora a seductive alternative to her domestic routine, Dora finds that real change is far from easy. Meanwhile, her precocious only daughter, Cecilia, longs for a more traditional life, especially the formal education her new school can't offer. Cecilia becomes obsessed with her English teacher, James Dahl-an errant representative of the establishment she craves, and husband of the dangerous Elisabeth.

Twenty years later, the adult Cecilia brings her partner and daughters back home to the moors and her aging mother. Moving between past and present, You slowly reveals how far Dora and Cecilia once let their private, impossible desires lead them-and how much further the consequences extend. Sensual, unnerving, and gripping, You is a novel about the lives we think we want, the choices we can't unmake, and the loves and losses we never forget.

---

I thought I would be to this one by now, but it looks as though I will start it tomorrow.  :)

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - January 31, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week is from another of my personal books (trying to get my TBR bookshelf down so I can buy more books!)

---

My teaser this week: 

"Could you tell," Asagao asks Sadaie, "I'ai's phather phon his phoice?"
"That's it," says Yayoi.  "Your dream was a clue about I'ai's father."
Even Kagero shows interest in the theory:  "Which monks were your engifters?"

- page 197, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

In 2007, Time magazine named him one of the most influential novelists in the world. He has twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The New York Times Book Review called him simply “a genius.” Now David Mitchell lends fresh credence to The Guardian’s claim that “each of his books seems entirely different from that which preceded it.” The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a stunning departure for this brilliant, restless, and wildly ambitious author, a giant leap forward by even his own high standards. A bold and epic novel of a rarely visited point in history, it is a work as exquisitely rendered as it is irresistibly readable.

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.

But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings.  As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”

A magnificent mix of luminous writing, prodigious research, and heedless imagination, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most impressive achievement of its eminent author.

---

If you read this one, make sure that you keep reading after the initial pages.  When I first started reading it, I was confuzzled by all of the characters and the setting, and the different things that were happening.  It was as though I were simply dumped into the midst of the coast of Japan in the late 1700's, with a bunch of sailors and "company" men with no clue what was what and who was who and why.  Keep reading, though, it all sorts itself out, and it's REALLY a good read (at least so far-I'm about 60% done).

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - January 24, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teaser is from the latest Leonid McGill mystery/thriller, which releases TODAY!

---

My teaser this week: 

The best con men believe their stories up until the moment they let you down.  They're telling you the truth, they're telling you the truth, they're telling you the truth and then, all of a sudden, they see a different light, take the money, and run before either one of you knows what happened.

- page 160 (ARC), All I Did was Shoot my Man by Walter Mosley (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Cover description:

Seven years ago, Zella Grisham came home to find her man, Harry Tangelo, in bed with her friend.  The weekend before, $58 million had been stolen from Rutgers Assurance Corp., whose offices were across the street from where Zella worked.  Zella didn't remember shooting Harry, but she didn't deny it either.  The district attorney was inclined to call it temporary insanity - until the police found $50,000 from the Rutgers heist hidden in her storage space.  For reasons of his own, Leonid McGill is convinced of Zella's innocence.  BUt as he begins his investigation, his life gets more complicated.  His wife is drinking more than she should.  His older son has moved in with his girlfriend, an ex-prostitute.  His younger son is working for him and trying to stay within the law.  And his father, whom he thought was long dead, has turned up under an alias.

A gripping story of murder, greed, and retribution, All I Did Was Shoot My Man is also the poignant tale of one man's attempt to stay connected to his family.

---

I admit; I really like Leonid, this P.I. with a bad background and a philosophical bent.  He tries to atone for some of the bad he did in the past, but sometimes you just can't make things better once you've destroyed someone's life.

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - January 17, 2012 - Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

---

My teaser this week: 

Panin recognized the possibility that Passek might be tortured and that the conspirators could be sure of their freedom for only a few hours.  They must act quickly.  Catherine must be brought back to the capital and proclaimed empress without waiting for the arrest and deposition of the emperor.

- page 261 (ARC), Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Description:

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.

Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones.

Reaching the throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the “benevolent despot” idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. Her reputation depended entirely on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as the equal of the greatest of classical philosophers; she was condemned by her enemies, mostly foreign, as “the Messalina of the north.”

Catherine’s family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies—all are here, vividly described. These included her ambitious, perpetually scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her lying untouched beside him for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son and heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her “favorites”—the parade of young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is the giant figure of Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover and possible husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of love and separation, followed by seventeen years of unparalleled mutual achievement.

The story is superbly told. All the special qualities that Robert K. Massie brought to Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great are present here: historical accuracy, depth of understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth, and a rare genius for finding and expressing the human drama in extraordinary lives.

History offers few stories richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.

---

I have the feeling that once I read this, I will be an almost-expert on Catherine!

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - January 10, 2011

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The teaser this week is for an award-winner that I'm told is "heavy" reading, but worth it!

---

My teaser this week: 

     "A man from my college," Dr. Cranmer says tentatively, "was told by the cardinal that as an infant you were stolen by pirates."
     He stares at him for a moment, then smiles in slow delight.  "How I miss my master.  Now he has gone north, there is no one to invent me."
     Dr. Cranmer, cautious:  "So it is not true?  Because I wondered if there was doubt over whether you were baptized.  I fear it could be a question, in such an event."
     "But the event never took place.  Really.  Pirates would have given me back."
     Dr. Cranmer frowns.  "You were an unruly child?"
     "If I'd known you then, I could have knocked down your schoolmaster for you."

- pages 228-229, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Awards:

Man Booker Prize (2009) 

Orange Prize Nominee for Fiction (2010) 

National Book Critics' Circle Award for Fiction (2010)

Costa Book Award Nominee for Novel (2009)

Goodreads description:

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

---

Again, a teaser with more than two sentences, but I felt that this section had to be put in context.  As I prepare this post, I haven't started reading this one yet, but I AM looking forward to it.

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - January 3, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The teaser this week is for one that's been getting great reviews!  TODAY is its release date!

---

My teaser this week: 

"Linh Cinder," said the machine's mechanical voice, "we have been contacted by your legal guardian in regard to your unauthorized disappearance.  You are hereby in violation of the Cyborg Protection Act and have been labeled a runaway cyborg."

- page 265 (ARC), Cinder by Marissa Meyer (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

In this thrilling debut young adult novel, the first of a quartet, Marissa Meyer introduces readers to an unforgettable heroine and a masterfully crafted new world that’s enthralling.

---

As I write, I haven't started this one yet.  But I plan to finish up The Historian tonight (Monday night), and this one is next on my list (trying to get the review up as close to its release date as I can!)

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - December 6, 2011

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

---

My teaser this week: 

I realized he was going to report every word of our conversation - such as it was - to his employer, so I tried to come up with something to explain all the questions.  "She died right outside my shop, you know.  It was terrible."

- page 225 (ARC), Thread Reckoning by Amanda Lee (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

Cupid's arrow is making its way to Tallulah Falls, Oregon, bringing lots of business to Marcy Singer's embroidery specialty shop-like the bride who wants her mother's dress embellished with jewels. But someone wants to squash all the romance-and in this case they'll go as far as murder... 

---

If you like cozies, look for a review and giveaway of this one coming up soon!

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - November 29, 2011

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

---

My teaser this week: 

This was one night in a small town, one of those burgs off the main road that nobody cares about much except for the people who live there.  And that's okay, because they care.  I looked at Bobbi Jill, sobbing into her hands.  I looked at Sadie. There was cream in her hair.  She smiled.  So did I.  She mouthed I love you, George.  I mouthed back I love you, too.  That night I loved all of them, and myself for being with them.  I never felt so alive or happy to be alive.  How could I leave all this, indeed?
The blow-up came two weeks later.

- page 423, 11/22/63 by Stephen King (The Book Depository / Amazon)

More than two sentences, but I think this really sets a mood.

Goodreads description:

November 22nd, 1963 was a rapid-fire sequence of indelible moments: Shots ring out; a president slumped over; a race to the Dallas hospital; an announcement, blood still fresh on the First Lady's dress. But what if President John F. Kennedy didn't have to die; if somehow his assassin could have been thwarted? For Maine schoolteacher Jake Epping, those hypothetical what if's become real possibilities when he walks through a portal to the past. Without special skills and still unfamiliar with his new/old surroundings, he struggles to discover a way to change the history he left. Like its Under the Dome predecessor, Stephen King's 960-page novel shows that this master of suspense is back at the top of his game.

---

This one's a tome, but Stephen King rocks!  The last tome of his that I read, "Under the Dome", seemed to FLY!

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - November 15, 2011

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The teaser this week is for a classic which comes highly recommended by my fellow reading friends!

---

My teaser this week:

"...Many a lady's chances of securing a good marriage prospect have rested on her perfect carriage."
"Especially if it's a private carriage attached to a good deal of money," Felicity jokes.

- page 181, A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Goodreads description:

It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?

---

 

Just starting this one; I have it as a discussion book on one of my Shelfari groups!

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - November 8, 2011

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The teaser this week is for the book chosen in my poll to start my November personal reading with!

---

My teaser this week: 

The younger woman had been elegantly dressed, but her pale-green gown was dirty and torn, stained with blood on the front where she clasped the murdered woman's head against her.  Her own lustrous, curly hair had come undone, her hat fell by its ribbons onto her shoulder, her face was bent over the dead woman's so that I couldn't see the luminous eyes I was already so used to meeting.

- page 216, The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Description:

Psychiatrist Andrew Marlow, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism. Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. THE SWAN THIEVES is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.

---

My first foray into Kostova's writing, and it is MARVELOUS!

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!

Teaser Tuesdays - November 1, 2011

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along; you don't have to be a blogger! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The teaser this week is for a classic which comes highly recommended by my fellow reading friends!

---

My teaser this week: 

The Grijs Gander wasn't just a dump bar.  It was a karaoke bar.  That made it about a thousand times more evil.  Think American Idol, except that all the judges are drunk and might be handy with a knife.

- page 131 (ARC), Adrenaline by Jeff Abbott (The Book Depository / Amazon)

Description:

Sam Capra—Brilliant CIA agent, loving husband, soon-to-be father—loses everything that matters to him in a horrifying moment in London. An unknown enemy has set him up as a traitor. However that enemy has targeted the wrong man. Escaping from the CIA, Sam goes on a desperate hunt for the killer who stole his family and to save his kidnapped wife and child. But the destruction of Sam's life was only step one in an extraordinary plot—and now Sam must become a new kind of hero.

---

As I'm putting this post together, I haven't started this one yet, but .. it DOES look good!

Feel free to leave your teaser or link to it in the comments section; I find that I always end up adding to my to-buy list when I visit!