Book Beginning: Murder on the Quai by Cara Black

Murder on the Quai, a novel by Cara Black, published June 14, 2016 by Soho Crime. I was lucky to find this one available at the library, the most recent in a mystery series set in Paris that I have read and enjoyed. 

Book description: Aimée Leduc, heroine of 15 mysteries in this New York Times bestselling series, is a très chic, no-nonsense private investigator—the toughest and most relentless in Paris. Now author Cara Black dips back in time to reveal how Aimée first became a detective.

Book beginning:
Paris. November 9, 1989. Thursday Night

Standing outside the Michelin-starred restaurant, a stone's throw from the Champs Elysees, the old man patted his stomach. The dark glass dome of the Grand Palais loomed ahead over the bare-branched trees. To his right the circular nineteenth century Theatre Marigny. 

"Non, non, if I don't walk home, I'll regret it tomorrow." He waved off his two drunken friends, men he had known since his childhood in the village, as they laughingly fell into a taxi. Course had followed course; remembering the caviar-dotted lobster in a rich veloutee sauce topped off by Courvoisier brandy, he rubbed his stomach again as he waved goodnight to the departing taxi....

Seems like a foreshadowing, setting the scene for what's to come....I have started the book and am engrossed in the story of the protagonist Aimee and how she first got into the detecting business.

Page 56: 
...After he had related what seemed like a typical evening , he described Bruno's arrival. "With a woman. A looker. Like you." Marc grinned....

Memes: 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.

Sunday Salon: Ebooks and Paper Books

Kindle ebooks have not been popular with me, even though I have tons and tons of them, mostly free mystery novels through Omnimystery News. I did read a few ebooks I bought without hesitation, without even caring that I wasn't reading a paper book. One of them was IQ84 by Murakami, which was such a thick novel of over 1,000 pages that it was easier to read on Kindle. The other most recent ebook I read was Walk, which I devoured very quickly. I don't mind reading really good books with excellent writing and plots via Kindle.

Here are two older books I borrowed from the library electronically:

The Last Kasmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverly is the first in the Joe Sandilands mystery series. The book has been promoted recently on Facebook by Soho Press, which printed a paperback in 2011.
Book description: It is India 1922 and the wives of officers in the Bengal Greys have been dying violently, one each year and always in March. The only link between the bizarre but apparently accidental deaths is the bunches of small red roses that appear on the women's graves..

I finished this book and gave it a five on goodreads.

The other ebook I'm reading is another 2011 publication:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, published 2011 by DoubleDay
Welcome to Le Cirque des Rêves. 

Book description: a contest between two young illusionists, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood to compete in a "game" to which they have been irrevocably bound by their mercurial masters. Unbeknownst to the players, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. 


Paper books borrowed from the library are also opened on my desk:

Murder on the Quai by Cara Black, published June 14, 2016 by Soho Crime.
Book description: The world knows Aimée Leduc, heroine of 15 mysteries in thisNew York Times bestselling series, as a très chic, no-nonsense private investigator—the toughest and most relentless in Paris. Now author Cara Black dips back in time to reveal how Aimée first became a detective . 

The Grand Tour by Adam O'Fallon Price, published August 9, 2016 by Doubleday

A bitingly funny, smart and moving road novel about two hapless lost souls—an alcoholic Vietnam veteran turned bestselling author, and his awkward, shy college student superfan—who form an unlikely connection on the world's most disastrous book tour. (publisher)

I finished this and gave the book a 5 on goodreads. 

What are you reading these days?

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. 

Book Beginning: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

A YA novel that came out some years ago which I am just now reading, an ebook borrow from the library. This is one novel with magic that I don't mind reading.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, published 2011 b DoubleDay
Welcome to Le Cirque des Rêves. 
Beyond the smoke and mirrors, however, a fierce competition is under way--a contest between two young illusionists, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood to compete in a "game" to which they have been irrevocably bound by their mercurial masters (publisher)

The circus arrives without warning. 

No announcement precedes it, no paper notices on downtown posts or billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. 

Have you read this one?
Meme:
Visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader. 

Library Find: The Grand Tour by Adam O'Fallon Price

A road novel with two unlikely characters on a book tour by car....My lucky library find.....

The Grand Tour by Adam O'Fallon Price, published August 9, 2016 by Doubleday
A bitingly funny, smart and moving road novel about two hapless lost souls—an alcoholic Vietnam veteran turned bestselling author, and his awkward, shy college student superfan—who form an unlikely connection on the world's most disastrous book tour. (publisher)

Richard Lazar is advancing in years but regressing in life. After a career as a literary novelist that has ground to a halt and landed him in a trailer in Phoenix, Richard is surprised to find sudden success publishing a gritty memoir about his service in Vietnam. Sent on a book tour by his publishing house, Richard encounters his biggest (and really only) fan: an awkward, despondent student named Vance with issues of his own (an absentee father, a depressive mother, his own acute shyness). Soon Vance has volunteered to chauffeur Richard for the rest of the book tour, and the two embark on a disastrous but often hilarious cross-country trip. . (publisher)

I am half way through the book, a psychological study as much as a road trip that is only slightly predictable, about two people who help each other along the way.  I recommend it already though I don't know what the ending will be....

First Chapter: Adolfo KIaminsky, A Forger's Life by Sarah Kaminsky

Biography, memoir, history - the life of Adolfo Kaminsky

Adolfo Kaminsky: A Forger's Life, by Sarah Kaminsky, DoppelHouse Press, 2016.

First paragraph:
Prologue

"Since you want to know everything, tell me what you think you know about my life. For example, when did you learn that I was in the Resistance?"

To be honest, I don't know. Even less about you being a forger. If we'd stayed in Algeria I might never have known about the Second World War. For me you were the Mujahid, as they say."

"But afterwards, in France, you knew?"

"Not right away. You didn't talk to us about it. I grew up thinking I was the daughter of a social caseworker who helped rehabilitate young delinquents, found work for them, taught them photography. But by keeping my ears open when the grown-ups were talking I got some hints, in bits and pieces...."

Book description: 
Best-selling author Sarah Kaminsky takes readers through her father Adolfo Kaminsky's perilous and clandestine career as a real-life forger for the French Resistance, the FLN, and numerous other freedom movements of the twentieth century. (publisher)

Based on the first paragraphs in the Prologue, would you keep reading?

Meme: Every Tuesday First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros are hosted by Bibliophile By the Sea. Share the first paragraph sometimes two, of a book you are reading or plan to read soon.

Sunday Salon: Herbs, Mystery, and a Healing Garden

My current read...

Murder in the Secret Garden is the third Book Retreat Mystery by Ellery Adams, published August 2, 2016, and I think I want to read the first two. So far, the book has given me interesting information on herbs and gardening and dishes. I have already gone and gathered handful of basil leaves from my giant pot of the herb and made a delicious salad instead of just admiring the basil's shiny green leaves. There is still a lot of the plant left and I'll miss it come winter. Another reason I wish I had a greenhouse!

Add in potions that can kill, gardeners, a poison and herb expert, a healing garden, and a conference that puts several people all together in the same house, and the mystery is intriguing. There is bound to be murder, and there is. I am enjoying this cozy. slowly, in between my necessary chores.

What are you reading these days?

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. 

Reader, I Married HIm, edited by Tracy Chevalier: Book Beginning

Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre

Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre, edited by Tracy Chevalier, 2016 
Short story beginning:
To Hold by Joanna Briscoe, page 55

Reader, I married him because I had to. 

You see, we did in those days. There was no glimmer of a choice. 

My hand in marriage was requested by the boy with the triangular Adam's apple and a shuffling thirst for a girl. He was the lad who worked for his parents' motor garage on a yard beyond the village, and I hadn't expected his offer after a lifetime of nods, three conversations, one dance and no kiss with him. But he knocked on our door and asked my father, who postponed his answer, crimson-necked. Using half an excuse, he told Dougie Spreckley to wait. 

Twenty-one writers have contributed to this short story collection, with the same theme based on the Jane Eyre novel. I have read several and am slowly enjoying the rest! 

Memes: 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.