The Mermaid of Brooklyn by Amy Shearn

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. Opening sentences in a book can help readers decide if the book is one they would continue reading. 

Before I died the first time, my husband left me broke and alone with our two tiny children and it made me feel very depressed, etc. It's the same old story: He went to buy cigarettes and never came home. Really. Wouldn't you think you'd want to pack a bag or two, leave a forwarding address? Couldn't he have at least taken the dog? These were the things I wondered in the beginning. Not: was he having an affair, or: was he mixed up in something nefarious, but: I can't believe he wouldn't bring his datebook, his favorite loafers; I can't believe he didn't change the light bulb in the hallway before deserting us. He knew I couldn't reach that light bulb. The whole thing was unlike him. Then again, I was the one who died, which was unlike me, too.

"SOMETIMES ALL YOU NEED IN LIFE IS A FABULOUS PAIR OF SHOES—AND A LITTLE HELP FROM A MERMAID. Formerly a magazine editor, Jenny Lipkin is raising two children in a cramped Park Slope walk-up. When her husband, Harry, vanishes one evening, Jenny reaches her breaking point and a split-second decision changes her life. Pulled from the brink by an unexpected ally, Jenny rethinks her ideas about success, motherhood, romance, and relationships." (publisher)

Title: The Mermaid of Brooklyn: A Novel by Amy Shearn
Paperback published April 2, 2013; Touchstone
Genre: women's fiction

Would you keep reading, based on the first chapter, first paragraph? 

Sunday Salon: A Few Good Books

Welcome to the Sunday Salon!

Winter is hanging on with cold and icy rain. Winter officially ends this week but....only a few birds are out tweeting about spring in the backyard. Luckily, good books are still around in all weather, and I have started to read more on Kindle Cloud Reader.  Right click on a strange word and the dictionary meaning pops up!

Review books close by for when I get a few minutes more:

The Mermaid of Brooklyn

The Mermaid of Brooklyn by Amy Shearn:
Jenny Lipkin is a stretched-too-thin Brooklyn mom, tackling the challenges of raising two children in a cramped Park Slope walk-up in New York. But when her husband, Harry, vanishes one evening, Jenny reaches her breaking point. And in a moment of despair, a split-second decision changes her life forever. (goodreads)

The Abundance

The Abundance by Amit Majmudar:  "A luminous, bittersweet novel of India and the American Midwest, immigrants and their first-generation children, and the power of cooking to bridge the gulfs between them."

A Woman of Angkor

A Woman of Angkor by John Burgess:
"An historically accurate history of World Heritage site Angkor - 12th Century Cambodia, birthplace of the lost Angkor civilisation. In a village behind a towering stone temple lives a young woman named Sray, called to a life of prominence in the royal court. She is tested by attentions from the great king Suryavarman II though her husband Nol is palace confidante and master of the silk parasols that were symbols of the monarch's rank.

This novel revives the rites and rhythms of the ancient culture that built the temples of Angkor, then abandoned them to the jungle. Sray witnesses the construction of the largest of the temples, Angkor Wat, and offers an explanation for its greatest mystery - why it broke with centuries of tradition to face west instead of east." (from goodreads)

What's on your plate this Sunday?