Book Beginning: Accidents of Marriage by Randy Susan Meyers

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader. Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. Post it. Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also, visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Accidents of Marriage by Randy Susan Meyers,paperback to be published June 9, 2015; Washington Square Press
Genre: contemporary fiction
Book beginning:

Maddy ran her tongue over her teeth, imagining he bitter taste of a crumbling tablet of Xanax. After a gut-wrenching day at the hospital nothing tempted her more than a chemical vacation. Nothing appealed to her less than cooking supper. Churning stomach acid - courtesy of work - coupled with anxiety that Ben might come home as frenzied as he'd left made a formidable appetite killer. 

Page 56:

"Don't move. You might have internal injuries." She pushed back wet hair on her forehead. As though offering a condolence prize, she held up a phone. "Do you want me to call someone for you? Do you want to make a call?"

Book description:
Accidents of Marriage explores a topic rarely shown in fiction: the destruction left in the wake of spouse’s verbal fury. Ben never meant to hurt Maddy. He never imagined his recklessness would lead to tragedy.                     

Sunday Salon: The Comfort of Lies: A Novel by Randy Susan Meyers

I found out a lot about open adoption while reading The Comfort of Lies - the inherent pluses as well as the inevitable downsides.  Open adoptions allow open access between a child's adoptive parents and the child's biological parents. The three women involved in the life of the adopted child, Savannah are her biological mother Tia,  her adoptive mother Caroline, and Juliette, the distraught wife of the child's biological father. The three women, in spite of the lies they tell others and themselves, face problems and difficulties of their own making, but come through with flying colors, though only at the very end of the book after much soul searching and hand wringing.

This was a fascinating read. Well drawn, realistic characters and excellent writing.

Title: The Comfort of Lies by Randy Susan Meyers
Publisher: Atria Books, February 12, 2013
Genre: contemporary fiction
Source: review copy from the publisher