Sunday Salon: Books from My Shelves

Books from my shelves, revisited. I featured this book on a Waiting on Wednesday post last year and have pulled it to be read this winter!

The Summer of Good Intentions by Wendy Francis, July 7, 2015; Simon and Schuster
Genre: contemporary women's fiction

The Herington girls - Maggie, Jess, and Virgie -  are together again, with their husbands and kids, for another summer in the family’s old Cape Cod house.

When their mother, Gloria, announces she’s coming for an unscheduled visit—with her new boyfriend—no one is more surprised than their father, Arthur, who has not quite gotten over his divorce.  (publisher)

Here's another that I hope to read soon:


Iris and Ruby: A Novel by Rosie Thomas, April 5, 2016 by The Overlook Press
Setting: Cairo

Iris Black's Cairo house is disturbed by the arrival of willful granddaughter Ruby from England. Ruby helps Iris document deteriorating memories of glittering, cosmopolitan Cairo and her WWII one true love, enigmatic Captain Xan Molyneux, who was lost to war. Iris’ early devastation shaped her daughter, granddaughter, and leads them into terrible danger in the Egyptian desert. (publisher)

Any older books from your shelves you are currently reading/hoping to read? 

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.
Also visit It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date. 

First Chapter: Iris and Ruby by Rosie Thomas

The winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year Award (2007), Iris and Ruby, is about a grandmother-granddaughter relationship, with flashbacks to the grandmother's early history in Egypt. The novel was reprinted April 2016. I started it several weeks ago but then got sidetracked by new arrivals! It's one I'm looking forward to reading in its entirety.

Iris and Ruby: A Novel by Rosie Thomas, published April 5, 2016 by The Overlook Press
Setting: Cairo
Genre: romance, part historical fiction

First chapter, first paragraph:

I remember.
And even as I say the words aloud in the silent room and hear the whisper dying away in the shadows of the house, I realize that it's not true. 
Because I don't, I can't remember. 
I am old and am beginning to forget things.
Sometimes I'm aware that great tracts of memory have gone, slipping and melting away out of my reach. When I try to recall a particular day, or an entire year, even a damned decade, if I'm lucky there are the bare facts unadorned with color. More often than otherwise there's nothing at all. A blank. 

Book description: 
Iris Black's Cairo house is disturbed by the unexpected arrival of willful granddaughter Ruby from England. Ruby helps Iris document deteriorating memories of glittering, cosmopolitan Cairo and her WWII one true love, enigmatic Captain Xan Molyneux, who was lost to war. Iris’ early devastation shaped her daughter, granddaughter, and leads them into terrible danger in the Egyptian desert.

Teaser from Chapter 5:

"Ruby, do you remember we talked about you helping me to collect some of my old memories?"

Memes: Every Tuesday Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros where readers share the first paragraph sometimes two, of a book that they are reading or plan to read soon. 

Do the book description and first paragraph of the first chapter above appeal to you? Would you read on?

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.