There Was An Old Woman by Halli Ephron

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB; choose sentences from your current read and identify author and title for readers. First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea.  

There Was An Old Woman: Novel of Suspense

Title: There Was An Old Woman: A Novel of Suspense by Hallie Ephron
Published April 2, 2013; William Morrow

Mina Yetner sat in her living room, inspecting the death notices in the Daily News. She got through two full columns before she found someone older than herself. Mina blew on her tea, took a sip, and settled into her comfortable wing chair. In the next column, nestled among dearly departed strangers, she found Angela Quintanilla, a neighbor who lived a few blocks away. 

Publisher description: "A novel of psychological suspense, in which a young woman becomes entangled in a terrifying web of deception and madness involving her elderly neighbor. "Don't let him in until I'm gone." That's what Mina Yetner's neighbor whispers to her just before the EMTs take her to the hospital. Mina writes down the message - at nearly ninety, she has to write down most things lest she forget-and calls Sandra's daughter Ginger, telling her that once again her mother needs help.

 Evie Ferrante is dismayed when she gets the call from her sister:  it's Evie's turn to see what their mother's done to herself. But when Evie arrives home-where she hasn't been in months-she's shocked by the state of her mother's house: it's in terrible disrepair. And as Evie cleans and organizes, she finds things that don't make sense: expensive liquor in the garage, pricier than their mother's usual brand, a new flat-screen television on the wall. Where was her mother getting all this money?

Evie, suspicious and concerned about her mother, rekindles a relationship with Mina. Mina's been having episodes she can't explain lately, herself, and her nephew Brian is trying to convince her to move to a community that will provide her with some help. Though Mina's resistant, Evie isn't certain that isn't a bad idea. But before any decision is made about Mina, Evie needs her help figuring out what's been going on with her mother-and the more Evie digs into what her mother's been up to over the past few months, the more a bigger-and more sinister-story begins to unfold."

Would you keep reading because of the opening paragraph? I'd keep reading, wondering about the lives of these elderly women living alone...

I received a complimentary galley of this novel.