Feb 26, 2016

The Madwoman Upstairs, a Novel by Catherine Lowell

The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.
The Mad Woman Upstairs, a literary novel by Catherine Lowell, to be released March 1, 2016 by Touchstone.

"...the only remaining descendant of the Brontë family embarks on a modern-day literary scavenger hunt to find the family's long-rumored secret estate, using clues her eccentric father left behind." (publisher)

Book beginning: 
The night I arrived at Oxford, I learned that my dorm room was built in 1361 and had originally been used to quarantine victims of the plague. The college porter seemed genuinely apologetic a he led me up the five flights of stairs to my tower. He was a nervous man - short and mouthy, with teeth like a nurse shark - who admitted through a brittle accent that Old College was over-enrolled this year, and that the deans has been forced to find space for students wherever they could. This tower was an annex to Old College. Many tragic and important people had lived here before me, apparently: had I heard of Timothy the Terrible? Sir Michael "the Madman" Morehouse? I shook my head and said that i was sorry - I was American. 

Page 56:
I marveled at their ability to create characters that bore no resemblance to their own selves whatsoever. Were they geniuses in a world of losers? Or were there glimmers of themselves in even their most outlandish fictional creations?

I rated this book a 5/5. 

10 comments:

  1. This does sound like a good book. I really like the beginning. I am spotlighting Just This Night by Mari Madison this week. Happy reading!

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  2. I love the sound of this one...how creepy to have to live in the tower room! LOL.

    Thanks for sharing, and here's mine: ”THE PRICE OF SALT”

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  3. The title alone makes me want to read this book! Sounds like a good one.
    My Friday post features WATERCOLORS IN THE RAIN.

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  4. The title pulled me right in too. The snippets left me thinking this is one I would want to take my time reading. Absorb every word.
    Happy weekend!

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  5. Love the title! I'd camp out in the bathroom if I had to, but I would not stay in the tower. This sounds like one creepy, scary book. Adding it to my list.

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  6. I like the beginning of this book. Old places are interesting, history is interesting, and the history of the plague and the fourteenth century is particularly interesting.

    The premise of the book, Brontë family. is also intriguing. Thus I would keep reading this.

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  7. Just the cover sells it to me. Now I want to read it because of the synopsis and the snippet ... here's mine: http://guiltlessreading.blogspot.ca/2016/02/friday56-bookbeginnings-zero-k.html

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  8. Excellent beginning and "56"! This Brontë book sounds intriguing, Harvee.

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  9. Jane Eyre meets Da Vinci Code? Sounds like it could be very fun!

    Thanks for participating in BBOF!

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  10. This just sounds so incredibly charming. Literary fiction is always a good idea!

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I appreciate your comments and thoughts...

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