Tag Archives: Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays: A Widow’s Awakening

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A Widow's Awakening

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! 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!

No frou frou stories about fashionistas or prom dresses, this week. No comforting Trek fic, not even another sea story. Instead, this:

On January 10th, Nick’s wife is scheduled for a 9:00 a.m. C-section. Why I, the nuttier-than-a-fruitcake recently widowed childless auntie, has been asked to attend the birth, I’m not sure. Perhaps it has something to do with my refusal to tell people how I’m really feeling. And still not having grasped the concept of saying no, off I go.

At 9:30, a baby girl with the middle name of Hope arrives. When she’s shown to me, I shiver.

“You’re being held by Sam,” the baby’s maternal grandmother says to me.

“Huh?”

“The way your body just reacted,” she explains, “it looked like someone was standing behind you, wrapping their arms around you.”

From A Widow’s Awakening, by Maryanne Pope – page 205-206.

Teaser Tuesdays: Little House on the Prairie

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Little House on the Prairie

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! 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!

I’m cheating this week, because I’m so tired of ads hawking everything from the best cigar deals to new cars that come with free iPads right out of the box. While I’m not particularly religious, I do think the commercialism of Christmas is way overdone. It’s exhausting, and somewhat repulsive.

It was with intention, then, that I pulled from my shelves earlier today, a couple of the “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This excerpt, then, is from the chapter entitled “Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus,” from the book Little House on the Prairie, because I’m feeling wistful for a time when something as simple as a cup of your very own meant you had an incredible Christmas. It’s a bit longer than teasers are meant to be, but it’s important to me to share it.

Something was shining bright in the top of Laura’s stocking. She squealed and jumped out of bed. So Did Mary, but Laura beat her to the fireplace. And the shining thing was a glittering new tin cup.

Mary had one exactly like it.

These new tin cups were their very own. Now they each had a cup to drink out of. Laura jumped up and down and shouted and laughed, but Mary stood still and looked with shining eyes at her own tin cup.

Then they plunged their hands into the stockings again. And they pulled out two long, long, sticks of candy. It was peppermint candy, striped red and white. They looked and looked at that beautiful candy, and Laura licked her stick, just one lick. But Mary was not so greedy. She didn’t even take one lick of her stick.

Those stockings weren’t empty yet. Mary and Laura pulled out two small packages. They unwrapped them, and each found a little heart-shaped cake. Over their delicate brown tops was sprinkled white sugar. The sparkling grains lay like tiny drifts of snow.

The cakes were too pretty to eat. Mary and Laura just looked at them. But at last Laura turned hers over, and she nibbled a tiny nibble from underneath, where it wouldn’t show. And the inside of that little cake was white!

It had been made of pure white flour, and sweetened with white sugar.

Laura and Mary never would have looked in their stockings again. The cups and the cakes and the candy were almost too much. They were too happy to speak. But Ma asked if they were sure the stockings were empty.

Then they put their arms down inside them, to make sure.

And in the very toe of each stocking was a shining bright, new penny!

They had never even thought of such a thing as having a penny. Think of having a whole penny for your very own. Think of having a cup and a cake and a stick of candy and a penny.

There never had been such a Christmas.

Teaser Tuesdays: Slipknot

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Slipknot

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! 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!

I’m still in the mood to read books that involve the ocean in some form. I suppose at some point my mood will shift and I’ll want books full of pretty clothes and romance and bridal gowns, but right now, seafaring stories are making me happy.

Recently, I started reading Linda Greenlaw’s fiction, but even though I began reading this book last month, I’ve had NO TIME to read in the last several days, so it’s taking me longer than any book generally does. In any case, since it’s the Kindle edition, I can’t give the page number, but my teasers are from “locations 527-40.”

“That larger island is Acadia, right?” I asked, pointing offshore.

“Yes. Look, you can see the houses. Only see them when it’s wicked clear. The eastern shore is where all you Bunkers are from. That great span of open water to the right of Acadia is known as Penobscot Ridges.”

“Isn’t that the proposed site for the wind farm?” I asked, ignoring the comment about my family. I knew the answer but was looking for an opinion, or at least another detail.”

“Yes. That tiny puddle of the North Atlantic Ocean is causing quite a ruckus around here. It’s been the most productive bottom for cod since before I was born. Green Haven’s bread and butter for decades. It’s been closed to fishing for the last five years or so, to allow the fish a breeding ground. Now the fishermen want to harvest what’s there, and the wind farm people want it for their own.”

— from Slipknot by Linda Greenlaw.

You can buy the book from Amazon or read the first chapter for free.

Teaser Tuesdays: Six Clicks Away, by Bonnie Rozanski

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

It’s a chilly November Tuesday with a slate-grey sky promising a cold rain. I am working from my kitchen table today, a fall bouquet smiling at me, and one of my favorite mid-weight sweaters keeping me warm, so I can leave the back door slightly open. It’s the perfect day to alternate working with reading lovely books (although, since I’m wading through a stack of review books, that IS working).

Right now, I’m reading Bonnie Rozanski’s latest offering, Six Clicks Away, which she kindly sent me to review. In fact, she sent it in electronic format, and I transferred it to my Kindle. I’m enjoying it immensely, so thought it would be an appropriate teaser today:

Way in the back of the Second Cup Coffee Shop on College Street off of Spadina in Toronto, at a tiny table hosting one laptop and a grande latte, sat Julia, frizzy-haired, frenetic and angry.

“Is this Amazon Customer Service?” Julia was yelling into her cell phone. “Hello? Hello?”

The guy in back of the counter flashed her a dirty look and a wave to keep it down. He had nothing against a moderate amount of white noise. After all, the whoosh of steam from the espresso machine, the surround sound of low conversation, rustling papers, and tapping of keys were all integral to the Second Cup experience. But he had to remember that his clientele was mostly University of Toronto types: studying, preparing lessons, or writing papers, and they wanted some modicum of quiet. Anyway, he had a sneaking suspicion that this loud, aggressive lady was American. Canadians would know better.

Sadly, I can’t give a page number since I don’t have it in bound format. Still…it’s a great book, and it’s making me smile.

It’s also making me desperate for a venti, soy, no-water chai.

After we vote, I guess.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

If this was something I planned to submit to directories of book reviews, I’d have to confess that my “current read” really isn’t a book, but a 23-page long short story. But it’s a famous short story, and one most of us never read any more, learning the legend only from movies. Nothing against Johnny Depp’s performance – I own Sleepy Holloy on BluRay, after all, the original is better, moodier, darker, and, well, authentic.

So, for this Teaser Tuesday, which comes during the Halloween week, I offer this excerpt from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the revolutionary war; and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper, having been buried in the church-yard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head; and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the church-yard before daybreak.

I should add: this is the piece I gave the young man I tutor in English for his assignment this week. He loved it. And you will too, I’m sure.

Teaser Tuesday: The Wedding Gift

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

Between the books on the Kindle I got for my birthday, and the physical books stacked on the headboard of my bed, my to-be-read list is so big that I’m beginning to think weight loss products might be useful for it.

In any case, my teaser this week comes from The Wedding Gift by Kathleen McKenna, page 55:

The Piggly was about the only place in Dalton where you could talk to anyone right in town without a fear of being disturbed. See, Sandy Jacobs, who is our friend Britney’s dad, he ran the Piggly Wiggly store in town, and he had got into a terrible fight a year previously with Lurton Smits, the local garbage man. And because of that heated disagreement, now Lurton would not pick up garbage from the dumpsters from behind the store. And Mr. Jacobs, he didn’t get around to doing it more than once a month, so the place stunk like the bowels of hell. And, in addition, the rats started coming around, so while it was real disgusting back there, it was also real private, and privacy was not something that came easy in Dalton.

Tuesday Teaser: The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove.

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

As much as I’d rather be looking at different options for redecorating my kitchen, weighing the virtues of Kohler vs. Grohe, and such, I can’t afford to do more than fantasize right now, which is why I’m in another reading mood. (Note to COMMANDER PANTS: Look for the review of your book later this week. Really.) One of my favorite authors is Christopher Moore, and I’m about to start a novel of his that I bought last summer – or the summer before – and never got around to reading.

So here’s my teaser, from The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, by Christopher Moore, page 102:

To distract herself from the dragon next door, Molly had put on her sweats and started to clean her trailer. She got as far as filling three black trash bags with junk food jetsam and was getting ready to vacuum up the collection of sow bug corpses that dotted her carpet when she made the mistake of Windexing the television. Outland Steel: Kendra’s Revenge was playing on the VCR and when the droplets of Windex hit the screen, they magnified the phospphorescent dots, making the picture look like an impressionist painting: Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Le Grande Warrior Babe, perhaps.

Teaser Tuesdays: Cleaving: a Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

Sometimes the most effective diet pill isn’t a pill at all, but a bloody scene involving dead meat and sharp knives. I received Julie Powell’s second book on Tuesday (and why, pray tell, is Amazon suddenly using Velocity Express and requiring signatures?) afternoon, and couldn’t resist peeking at it, even though I have other books in progress, because I loved Julia and Julia, when I originally read it just after it came out in hardcover.

Here, then, even though it’s now Thursday morning, is my “Tuesday Teaser,” from Cleaving: a Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, by Julie Powell (page 43):

So I’ve told you a little bit about seams, those networks of filament that both connect muscles and define the boundary between them. Now, the difficulty is that seams can be thick, or they can be thin. The seam of a tenderloin, for instance, is very thin indeed, and therefore hard to follow. It’s easy to lose your way, which is apt to make you nervous, seeing as how the tenderloin is the single most expensive cut of meat on the steer, thirty-nine bucks a pound at Fleisher’s. If you lose the seam in one direction you waste tenderloin, and there’s only something like eight pounds of it per animal. If you lose it in the other direction, especially right at the head of the muscle, what’s called the “chateaubriand,” you cut into the eye of the sirloin, another expensive cut, and one that short-tempered chefs won’t buy mangled. Beginning butchers, needless to say, don’t get assigned to pull out many tenderloins.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Ghost and the Dead Man’s Library by Alice Kimberly

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

I’m not sure if having a live-in ghost is something that will remove the necessity of having good, cheap life insurance, but I do know that I’m really enjoying Alice Kimberly’s Haunted Bookshop series. It’s the relationship between Pen and Jack that has me inhaling these books, and also the fact that light reading is nice during the holidays.

In any case, here’s my teaser, from page 192 of book three, The Ghost and the Dead Man’s Library.

Picking a lock is an art. You can’t master it in a few minutes.

“So how do I get in?”

Break the window and turn the knob from the other side.

“Okay.” I raised the Maglite to smash the glass.

Not like that! Jack cried. With finesse. And real quiet like.

“How do you break a window quietly?”

I should note that in the above passage, lines in italics are the words of Jack, the ghost.

Teaser Tuesdays: Whom God Would Destroy by Commander Pants

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

It’s great fun for me, then, when an author contacts me directly, as did Commander Pants. I’m woefully behind on my reading, having had a weird and insanely busy November, but I am about to FINALLY crack open Whom God Would Destroy.

Here’s the teaser, from pages 170-171:

He walked out of the stall and continued on to the other side of the room. Beyond the last stall there was a matching corridor ending with a matching door; a twin to the way he had entered, except this door was closed. Confident of what was on the other side, he walked down the hall and opened it. He wasn’t disappointed. There it sat in all it’s glory: the missing McDonald’s kitchen from South Bend, Indiana, just as Doc had told Oliver. It appeared to be closed; the oil sat cold in the fryolators and the microwaves weren’t microwaving.