What Are You Reading Now?

Susan Sarah here, thinking that we haven't played a reading game in the Wenches Parlor for a while now.

So...let's try this. Pick up one of the fiction books you’ve been reading lately (okay, confess it, you're probably reading several at once, cuz you're a true addict like most of us here ... so choose one you'd like to share).

Now let the book fall open to a page, any page (and you can nudge it a little, no one is looking). Let us know what you find -- maybe the first few sentences of a paragraph on that page. Remember to give title and author, in case we all want to rush right out and buy the book!

Currently I'm reading The Water Devil by Judith Merkle Riley. Judith was a guest on Word Wenches a while back, and I'm only just working my way around to reading the book. That leaning tower of TBRs had to dwindle a little before I could get to it. And I am loving this book. Her voice is light, quick, and a breath of fresh air just as I'm entering the deadline tunnel.

And I may not finish it until after I emerge from that tunnel, but for now, it's a delight to read. Here's a snippet from page 41:

It was pink dawn, an excellent English dawn and not one of those dank, inferior, foreign ones such as he had seen entirely too many of on the march to Calais. From the clouds the night before, from the signs of the birds, of the stars, it promised to be fair. English sun, English grass, and English cooking--all better. He surveyed his little universe with the eye of a man who knows that he is lord of everything that counts....

Here's the Random House web page for the book: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307237897&view=rg

Take a few moments to share a short passage from a book you're currently reading -- we'd all be grateful, as it might be something we haven't tried yet. I would love some new suggestions to add to the tower of books in my reading corner....

                            ~Susan Sarah

TO WED A HIGHLAND BRIDE, my December Avon, will be released in just a few weeks! Check out the cool countdown timer on my website -- www.sarahgabriel.com !

Comments

[Maggie Robinson]

A look of shock registered on Mallone's face. He could barely afford the hamburger sitting in front of him, much less a fancy wedding reception, He didn't own a pair of black shoes, he hated pomp and ceremony, he didn't know how to dance, and most important of all, Maggie Toone wasn't at all what he wanted in a wife.~ Janet Evanovich's reissue, Wife for Hire

[kay]

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

“They took up so much space. That was the problem with men. It wasn’t just the leg-sprawl and the clumping down stairs. It was the constant demand for attention. Sit in a room with another woman and you could think. Men had that little flashing light on top of their heads. Hello. It’s me. I’m still here.”

Also wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
(love that title)

[Lois]

"...Mark my words, Mad Jack Tremont is no gentleman." ;) Page, ah, 110 I think, This Rake of Mine, Elizabeth Boyle. :)

Lois

[Janga]

"She had been betrothed for four years to her childhood sweetheart--a man who, humiliatingly, appeared to have forgotten her existence as soon as she was out of his sight, a man with dash and brilliance and the prospect of a glittering naval career. Eventually the most apalling of news had filtered its way back to her, conveyed by the gossips and scandalmongers who made it their business to upset as many people as possible. Her betrothed was a criminal. He had abandoned his promising naval career and had taken up instead as--whisper it--a pirate."

Nicola Cornick, "The Pirate's Kiss" Christmas Wedding Belles

I confess that this is the first thing I have read by Ms. Cornick. I bought the anthology because it also features a Miranda Jarrett novella.

[Susan Wilbanks]

"In the torchlight surrounding the camp of a hundred Kalindons, Rhia could see the rope burns on Marek's neck."

That's the opening sentence of VOICE OF CROW, by Jeri Smith-Ready, the second book in a romantic fantasy trilogy (1st volume is EYES OF CROW). I haven't started it yet, but I brought it in to read on my afternoon bus commute. (During the morning commute I do research reading--current book is EUROPE UNDER NAPOLEON 1799-1815, by Michael Broers.)

I had an unusually good reading week last week. I read HA'PENNY, the second of Jo Walton's dark alternate history series set in a fascist England in the late 1940's, and, on a similar note, HOW I LIVE NOW, by Meg Rosoff, which is another very dark story. Not quite an alternate history but an alternate contemporary where terrorists manage to make all of England (and apparently large chunks of America) into a war zone. And last but not least, I read Diana Gabaldon's LORD JOHN AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLADE for a relatively lighter note! I don't normally read a lot of dark books, but these were a nice change of pace.

I never read two novels at once--too distracting! Instead, I have my leisure book and my research book for my primary reading, plus assorted reading material lying around the house--mostly magazines, plus the kind of book you don't have to read straight through, like essay collections or Stephen Colbert's new book.

[Patricia Rice]

Oh, wow, unfair! I thought I was getting my TBR pile under control and now I'm fascinated by all these new prospects. (although I've read the Riley and had to buy it twice because the first one vanished before I finished it. It was well worth both purchases.)

I just finished CRAZY IN LOVE by Lani Diane Rich, a contemporary romance. Since it's sitting on my desk at the moment, I opened it to this excellent example of her voice:
"Because you two both seem intent on marking me as your personal territory. I think as the object in the middle of your competing urine streams, I'm owed an explanation." What a cool way of avoiding the obvious pejorative!

[maryjoputney]

Oh, my, which book to pull? I'm reading one novel, one non-fiction--and this compendium, which happens to be the closest.

THE WIT & WISDOM OF DISCWORLD is a collection of witty bits from all of Terry Pratchett's fantasy novels. He has a voice and mental operation unlike anyone else, and is well worth being cut into bits. Here's a short one from page 41:

"What is there in this world that makes living worth while?"
Death thought about it. CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.

(In the Discworld, Death always speaks in small caps. He's a rather good fellow, actually.)

Here's another bit from p. 121:

"Don't you talk to me about progress. Progress just meants that bad things happen faster."

Mary Jo

[Jaclyne Laurin]

"What would Cam do if she couldn't send him back in time? He was out of his element here. He couldn't live with her forever."
Just a short excerp from page 146 of the book I started this morning: A HIGHLANDER FOR CHRISTMAS by Sandy Blair. I'm just eating it up.
The previous book I was reading was a bit tedious and when I finished it (at long last), I fell into this one, but I'm not looking forward to finishing it because I haven't got another one whose pages are calling to me!

[Jane George]

I just finished Tate Hallaway's DEAD SEXY, so thought I'd read the first one, TALL, DARK and DEAD.

Page 110: "I had to admit that discovering Sebastian had money bothered me much more than knowing he was a vampire. Vampires I could deal with. Rich? I didn't know the first f***ing thing."

The books are light-spirited fun, Witch-Chick-Lit, if you will.

[MaryK]

from War for the Oaks by Emma Bull:

"The man looked at the phouka and frowned. The phouka smiled and inclined his head in lordly condescension. His costume contributed to the effect: gold-and-black frock coat, black ruffled shirt, skin-tight black pants and high-heeled boots.

The man didn't offer to shake hands with him. Instead, he returned his attention to Eddi. 'So, honey, you lookin' for a bike?'

. . . . Eddi gave the man a warning stare, and let it stay on him until she was certain he didn't understand it. 'I can ride a motorcycle,' she said.

'The key,' said the phouka, and held out a languid hand.

The man ignored him. Grinning down at Eddi, he said, 'Maybe I oughta go with you, to make sure.'

The phouka stepped forward. He was shorter than the bike's owner, and possibly a hundred pounds lighter. But he moved the dark glasses down his nose just enough to look over them, and the larger man stopped grinning."

[Susan/DC]

At the moment I'm reading Elizabeth Gaskell's "North & South", inspired by the wonderful BBC adaptation. Having seen the TV version first, I can easily picture the characters as they speak. In this excerpt relatively early in the book, Richard Thornton and Margaret Hale are discussing a projected strike in the cotton mills:

"I conjecture a simultaneous strike. You will see Milton without smoke in a few days, I imagine, Miss Hale."
"But why," asked she, "could you not explain what good reason you had for expecting a bad trade? I don't know whether I use the right words, but you will understand what I mean."
"Do you give your servants reasons for your expenditure, or your economy in the use of your own money? We, the owners of capital, have a right to choose what we will do with it."
"A human right," said Margaret, very low.

One reason I like this book is that, despite its Victorian wordiness, it portrays three dimensional characters struggling with the personal (love) and the political (the mills). Gaskell shows Margaret's willingness to try to understand both sides of the worker/owner dispute, to empathize with the downtrodden, and her courage to speak her mind, and I can understand why several of the men in the novel fall in love with her. Gaskell doesn't merely tell me but shows me Margaret in her beauty, her strength, and her foibles.