Book Review: The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme hosted by Jenn.

The Edge of Lost: A Novel by Kristina McMorris, to be released November 24, 2015 by Kensington

Objective rating: 5/5

Source: advance uncorrected proof for review

First paragraph: (taken from an uncorrected proof. The final copy may differ)

Alcatraz Island October 1937

Fog encircled the island, a strangling grip, as search efforts mounted. In the moonless sky, dark clouds forged a dome over the icy currents of San Francisco Bay. 

"You two check the docks," shouted Warden Johnston, his voice muffled by rain and howling wind. "We'll take the lighthouse. The rest of you spread out." 

More people traded directives, divvying up territory. They were off-duty guards and teenage sons who called Alcatraz their home, an odd place where a maze of fencing and concrete kept families of the prison staff safe from the country's most notorious criminals.
At least in theory.  

My summary and comments: Young Shanley Keagan travels in the mid-1930s from Ireland to New York and finds himself alone after the death of his uncle on board ship. He is unofficially adopted by an Italian-American family until he is grown and can fend for himself. However, Shanley, now known as Tommy Capello, unwillingly and unwittingly becomes embroiled in a crime, trying to save his Italian brother, and finds himself jailed on the infamous Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. 

The second half of the novel details Shanley's  life on Alcatraz and life in general for other inmates as well as prison guards and their families who live on the island. Shanley's friendship with the young daughter of a prison guard and attempts to escape provide suspenseful reading toward the end of the book. 

I enjoyed the story of a young Irish immigrant and his travails as a newcomer to America. The book is well researched and gave me a good look at the hardships of immigration at that time for several ethnic groups, among them the Irish and the Italians. Life on Alcatraz, for inmates as well as the prison staff is fascinating in its detail. 

The story kept me in suspense as you root for Shanley trying to cope with prison life and then deciding to plan escape through the shark-infested and cold waters around Alcatraz, an almost impossible attempt that many had tried unsuccessfully. 

Recommendation: If you have ever wondered about Alcatraz and its history, and you like a good historical novel with a suspenseful plot and interesting characters, read this. 

What do you think of the opening paragraphs?

Sunday Salon: More Books From My Shelves

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.

Pulling books again from my shelves, I found two goodies. So, along with reading (slowly) the three nonfiction books I started, I'm into these historical fiction books:

Natchez Burning by Greg Iles, published April 9, 2014 by William Morrow
Genre" historical thriller
Source: publisher
...the first installment in an epic trilogy that interweaves crimes, lies, and secrets past and present in a mesmerizing thriller featuring Southern lawyer and former prosecutor Penn Cage (publisher)

This novel  is set with the backdrop of Mississippi in the 1960s during the time of the Civil Rights murders and the activities of the KKK and its offshoots. Fascinating story, based on fact, I assume, though the particular incidents and characters are fictional.

I didn't realize that the author Iles has written other novels featuring his main character Penn Cage. The second novel in this trilogy, The Bone Tree, was published April 21, 2015, and the third is due next spring. I am finding Natchez Burning very well written and engrossing and look forward to the sequels.

The Fountain of Saint James Court by Sena Jeter Naslund, published September 17, 2013 by William Morrow
Source: publisher
Naslund's novel presents the reader with an alternate version of The Artist: a woman of age who has created for herself, against enormous odds, a fulfilling life of thoroughly realized achievement.  The novel deals with an older woman from the present and with the real painter Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun, a French Revolution survivor hated for her sympathetic portraits of Marie Antoinette. (publisher)

The goodreads readers didn't take to this novel, but I'm eager to see how I will like it. I have only read two chapters so far.

There are more goodies on my shelves that I hope to share with you over the course of the winter. What are you reading these days? 

The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro: Book Beginning

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.

The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro, to be released November 3, 2015 by Algonquin Books
From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Art Forger comes a  new novel of art, history, love, and politics that traces the life and mysterious disappearance of a brilliant young artist on the eve of World War II.

Alizée Benoit, an American painter working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), vanishes in New York City in 1940. No one knows what happened to her. Not her Jewish family in German-occupied France. Not her artistic patron, Eleanor Roosevelt. Not her group of artistic friends, including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Lee Krasner. And, some seventy years later, not her great-niece, Danielle Abrams, who uncovers enigmatic paintings hidden behind recently found works by those now famous Abstract Expressionist artists. Do they hold answers to the questions surrounding her missing aunt?

The Muralist plunges readers into prewar politics and the plight of European refugees refused entrance to the United States. It captures today’s New York art scene and the beginnings of the vibrant American school of Abstract Expressionism. (publisher)

Book beginning:

It was there when I arrived that morning, sitting to the right of my desk, ostensibly no different from the other half-dozen cartons on the floor, flaps bent back, paintings haphazardly poking out. As soon as I saw it, I ripped off my gloves,dropped to my knees, and pawed through the contents. I didn't realize I wasn't breathing until my chest began to ache and little black dots jumped around the edges of my vision. 

Page 56:

"Your work is damned good."
"Hans doesn't seem to agree." 

I have enjoyed several historical novels on art and am looking forward to this one.

Sunday Salon: Still Reading Library Books

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.

The zinnias in the backyard are hanging on and roses are still blooming on two bushes. It's been an on-again off-again kind of autumn, warm some days and cold on others. I expect that it will get cold for good this week. 

My Halloween pumpkin outside got eaten and the neighbor's pumpkins have also become feasts for the squirrels. I heard that spraying polyurethane on the pumpkins will keep critters from gnawing on them. 

No books in my mailbox last week, but I got some goodies from the library.

The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee, published September 1, 2015 by Simon and Schuster

I am finding lots of interesting facts. One is that the first Asian immigrants came by way of Spanish galleons sailing from Manila to Acapulco over 250 years, starting in the sixteenth century. The Asians were crew members from various countries on the ships; over the years some of them stayed in the Americas. 

The other interesting fact is that Asian migration from their countries came about primarily as a result of European and American contact and interest in the countries, for trade or labor and also through conquest or war - in China, Japan, Korea, India and various Southeast Asian countries. Fascinating stuff, and I am only in the first few chapters. 

The Feast of the Goat: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, published November 13, 2001.

I read and enjoyed this Peruvian Nobel-prizewinning author's most recent book, The Discreet Hero, and decided to try more of his work. I have just started this novel about a woman's experiences during the rule of the dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

Book description: Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic -- and finds herself reliving the events of 1961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved, ailing dictator whom Dominicans called the Goat, controls his inner circle (including Urania's father, a secretary of state now in disgrace) with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillo's gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillo's grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution is already under way that will have bloody consequences of its own. 

I am still reading two interesting nonfiction books - 
Hubris: the Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century by Alistair Horne and
The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge by Matt Ridley

After my nonfiction reading kick, I will get back to reading more novels. I've found a few on my shelf that I want to tackle. 

Have you read any nonfiction recently? 

Book Tour: Parchment and Old Lace by Laura Childs

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme hosted by Jenn.

Parchment and Old Lace: A Scrapbooking Mystery #13 by Laura Childs, October 2015; Berkley
Source: publisher

(In) the Big Easy and the historic Garden District, scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand discovers a bride-to-be murdered in the legendary Lafayette Cemetery…

First chapter, first paragraph:

Commander's Palace wasn't just the most storied restaurant in New Orleans. For Carmela Bertrand it was pure magic. 

Carmela knew this for a fact because she was sitting in their Garden Room at this very minute. And not only was she nibbling soft-shell crab and sipping an awesome Montrachet, but she was staring into the inquisitive blue eyes of her fella du jour, Detective Edgar Babcock.  

I always enjoy this series, the setting and atmosphere of New Orleans and the intrigue. That Lafayette Cemetery comes up often in the mystery series, as I recall, as it's a big tourist draw, and a great setting for strange events to take place in a novel. 

Teaser, page 158:

Carmela pointed into the darkness. "Right there. That's the mausoleum where someone knocked me in the head with the gate. I want to take a closer look."

"Be careful," Ellie said.

Makes me want to visit New Orleans. I may be one of the few who have never been!

Sunday Salon: The Secret Language of Women

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.

Saw the movie, The Martian, today and enjoyed it even more than the award- winning space film, Gravity. Lots more complex science and intimations of the future in space travel. 
We also ate at a new Brazilian cafe, where my favorite course was the dessert - flan (custard with carmelized sugar on top).

I found two library books about Nushu, the secret writing used by women in China to communicate privately. The novels are set in nineteenth century China. 

The Secret Language of Women by Nina Romano, published Sepember 29, 2015 by Turner Publishing
Genre: historical novel

Book description: Zhou Bin Lian, a Eurasian healer, and Giacomo Scimenti, an Italian sailor, are lovers driven apart by the Boxer Rebellion. Married to another and forbidden from her chosen profession as a healer, Lian is forced to work in a cloisonné factory while her in-laws raise her daughter, Ya Chen. It is in Nushu, the women’s secret writing, that she chronicles her life and her hopes for the future. But her quest for freedom comes at a costly price: the life of someone close to her, lost in a raging typhoon, a grueling journey to the Yun-kang Caves, and a desperate search for beauty and love in the midst of brutality. (publisher)

I was intrigued by the title, The Secret Language of Women, as I first heard about Nushu from author Lisa See. 

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See,  paperback published May 21, 2011 by RandomHouse
Genre: historical fiction

Book description: 
In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu (“women’s writing”). Some girls were paired with laotongs, “old sames,” in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.

With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. This lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship. (publisher)

I am eager to read both books to learn more about this unusual bit of history! Have you read either of these novels? 

New on my shelf: 

The Fairy Tale Girl, a memoir by Susan Branch, published September 15, 2015 by Spring Street Publishing
Genre: illustrated memoir

Book description: Based on the diaries Susan has kept since she was in her 20s, THE FAIRY TALE GIRL is book one of a two part series. Together the books are an illustrated memoir, designed with her whimsical watercolors and personal photographs. It's a story of love and loss, mystery and magic that begins in a geranium-colored house in California, and ends up, like any good fairy tale, on the right side of the rabbit hole, in a small cottage in the woods on the New England Island of Martha's Vineyard. (publisher)

Grabbed from my shelf: 

Taken In: Southern Sewing Circle #9 by Elizabeth Lynn Casey, published August 5, 2014
Genre: cozy mystery
Book description: Winning an appearance on a New York based morning show means the trip of a lifetime for librarian Tori Sinclair and the Sweet Briar Ladies Society Sewing Circle. Member Dixie Dunn wants to use the vacation as an opportunity to rendezvous with a man she met online. Tori must clear her friend's name when she is later charged with his murder. (publisher)

What books caught your interest last week? 

Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh: Book Beginning

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.

Am in the middle of reading this one and learning a lot, plus enjoying the rich cast of characters, the setting, and historical plot. 

Flood of Fire (Ibis Trilogy #3) by Amitav Ghosh, published August 4th, 2015 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (U.S.edition)
Genre: historical novel, literary fiction
Source: library 

The third in the Ibis Trilogy by Amitav Ghosh. A richly detailed historical novel about the British in India and China during the time of the Opium War in the nineteenth century, told primarily from the point of view of Indians and Chinese. The first in the trilogy, Sea of Poppies, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Ghosh was a finalist for the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. 

Book beginning: 

Havildar Kesri Singh was the kind of soldier who liked to take the lead, particularly on days like this one, when his battalion was marching through a territory that had already been subdued and the advance-guard's job was only to fly the paltan's colours and put on their best parade-faces for the benefit of the crowds that had gathered by the roadside.

 The villagers who lined the way were simple people and Kesri didn't need to look into their eyes to know that they were staring at him in wide-eyed wonder. East India Company sepoys were an unusual sight in this remote part of Assam: to have a full paltan of the Bengal Native Infantry's 25th Regiment - the famous 'Pacheesi' - marching through the rice-fields was probably as great a tamasha as most of them would witness in a year or even a decade. 

Page 56:  

While everyone 's attention was focused on Bhim, Kesri was busy ploughing the poppy fields. Try as he might, he could not stop thinking of his brother's forthcoming journey to Delhi, mounted on a horse, with his weapons slung behind him and a fine new turban on his head. 

Book description: It is 1839 and tension has been rapidly mounting between China and British India following the crackdown on opium smuggling by Beijing. With no resolution in sight, the colonial government declares war.

One of the vessels requisitioned for the attack, the Hind, travels eastwards from Bengal to China, sailing into the midst of the First Opium War. The turbulent voyage brings together a diverse group of travellers, each with their own agenda to pursue. Among them is Kesri Singh, a sepoy in the East India Company who leads a company of Indian sepoys; Zachary Reid, an impoverished young sailor searching for his lost love, and Shireen Modi, a determined widow en route to China to reclaim her opium-trader husband's wealth and reputation. 

Flood of Fire follows a varied cast of characters from India to China, through the outbreak of the First Opium War and China's devastating defeat, to Britain's seizure of Hong Kong. (publisher)

 What book are you showcasing this Friday?