Throwback Thursday : Jamaica Inn by Daphne DuMaurier
21 February 2019
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Daphne DuMaurier, Jamaica Inn, tenacious reader, Throwback Thursday
Throwback Thursday, is a new feature created by Tenacious Reader with the aim of highlighting books from the past. This can be virtually anything, a book from your past that you loved, a book that you want to highlight again, maybe it’s a book in a series and the next book is due out shortly so you want to focus some attention on the series. Anything goes – so long as your book isn’t a current release as there are already plenty of ways to highlight the latest books.
The book I’d like to highlight this week is : Jamaica Inn by Daphne DuMaurier
Perhaps not as well known as DuMaurier’s Rebecca but an excellent read with a very dark secret at its heart. I loved this book when I originally read it – in fact after reading Rebecca I had something of a binge read of many of her books. This was pre blog and so I have no review – perhaps I should have a reread! I love DuMaurier’s writing style and the fact that she uses the Cornish coastline as inspiration for many of her novels. She’s a wonderful storyteller and I heartily recommend this book.
The coachman tried to warn her away from the ruined, forbidding place on the rainswept Cornish coast. But young Mary Yellan chose instead to honor her mother’s dying request that she join her frightened Aunt Patience and huge, hulking Uncle Joss Merlyn at Jamaica Inn. From her first glimpse on that raw November eve, she could sense the inn’s dark power. But never did Mary dream that she would become hopelessly ensnared in the vile, villainous schemes being hatched within its crumbling walls — or that a handsome, mysterious stranger would so incite her passions … tempting her to love a man whom she dares not trust.
Friday Firsts: Planetfall by Emma Newman
16 March 2018
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Emma Newman, Friday Firsts, Planetfall, tenacious reader
Friday Firsts is a new meme that runs every Friday over on Tenacious Reader. The idea is to feature the first few sentences/paragraphs of your current book and try and outline your first impressions as a result. This is a quick and easy way to share a snippet of information about your current read and to perhaps tempt others. This Friday I’m reading : Planetfall by Emma Newman
Every time I come down here I think about my mother. I don’t want to: it just happens. My brain has decided it’s a critical subroutine that must be executed when the correct variables are in place: (which time = predawn) + (when physical location = beneath the colony) + (when physical act = opening the door to the Masher) run “unpleasant memory of mother #345.”
My hand is pushing the door open and I’m back at my old lab and she’s following me in, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. I’ve prepped the equipment to run one hour before her arrival so there’s something to show straightaway. She never was a patient woman.
“Is that a printer?” she asked, and I nodded. It started then – I know it now that I’m looking back – that tightening of my gut as I dared to hope I might impress her.
“Yeah.” I smiled.
She didn’t. “Like the one I have at home?”
“Better.”
“What’s it printing?”
“My latest work.”
She went up to the plasglass and peered through, seeing nothing but a few millimeters of tissue. She turned to me with her nose slightly wrinkled. “What is is printing?”
“A new pancreas,” I said. “For Dad.”
“Oh.” She’d hoped I was making something she could hang up in the hallway of her inert home. “I didn’t realise you were involved in this sort of thing. I’ve seen it on the new.”
And that was the moment I knew I’d been stupid to hope for anything.
My First Impressions
Well, there’s not really much given away here is there? It’s a memory, although clearly of a future that is more advanced than ours – if you can print out a pancreas – or is that already possible??!?! I think my immediate fear was on reading the little algebraic type problem in brackets I wondered if this was going to maybe be a little bit more problematic than I hoped (in terms of going over my rather simple head). However, it’s not working out like that so far so we’ll see and I must confess that on typing out this quote and rereading it for accuracy I completely understand what it means but in the immediate furore of starting a new book and rushing through the first few pages it did fly over my head. Silly, I realise. Anyway, so far so good.
What you reading this Friday?? What are your first impressions??
*The above excerpt was taken from an advanced reader copy and it is possible that the final version may have further changes.
Friday Firsts : Semiosis by Sue Burke
23 February 2018
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Friday Firsts, Semiosis, Sue Burke, tenacious reader
Friday Firsts is a new meme that runs every Friday over on Tenacious Reader. The idea is to feature the first few sentences/paragraph of your current book and try and outline your first impressions as a result. This is a quick and easy way to share a snippet of information about your current read and to perhaps tempt others. Stop on by and link up with Tenacious Reader. This Friday I’ve just started Semiosis by Sue Burke
The war had begun long before we arrived because war was their way of life It took its first victims among us before we understood what was happening, on an evening that seemed quiet. But even then, we knew we could easily be in danger.
My wife, Paula, shook her head as she left the radio hut in the plaza of our little village. “There’s too much interference again, I’ll try one more time, but if they don’t answer, we’ll start a search.”
An hour ago, three women had gone to pick fruit. They did not come back, they were not answering their radio, and the Sun had sunk almost to the top of the hills.
Around us, tiny lizards in the trees had begun their evening hoots and chimes. Nine-legged crabs silently hunted the lizards. The breeze smelled bittersweet, perhaps from something in bloom. I should have known what, but I did not.
Uri and I were fixing an irrigation pump, but I knew his mind was on one of the women, Ninia. He had just begun living with her, and he was squinting up the path through the fields where she had gone. And then he was jerked back to the present when the wind tangled his long blond beard around the pump handle. He knelt to free it. I pulled a jackknife from my belt, stroking my own short beard. He saluted with one finger. He was a Russian Slav, and a proper Slav never cuts his beard.
Paula went back to her work at a rough-hewn table nearby, trying to make sense of weather data. A wide straw hat held her red hair in place and protected her skin from the Sun. She took a deep breath and stretched her stiff back. We all struggled with the stronger gravity. Finally she entered the radio hut again.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and listened. The hut’s walls were panels scavenged from a landing pod and the roof was tree bark, so the sound carried.
“Hello?… Ninia? Zee? Carrie?”
static
“Hello?… This is Paula. Do you hear me?”
Static.
My First Impressions
Wow, what a great start. I’m hooked. Firstly this talk of war and then three missing women. I have to know what’s going on. This is an intriguing start to the book. Fingers crossed for this one.
What you reading this Friday?? What are your first impressions??
Friday Firsts : Owl and the Electric Samurai (The Adventures of Owl #3) by Kristi Charish
5 May 2017
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Friday Firsts, Kristi Charish, Owl and the Japanese Circus, tenacious reader
Friday Firsts is a new meme that runs every Friday over on Tenacious Reader. The idea is to feature the first few sentences/paragraph of your current book and try and outline your first impressions as a result. This is a quick and easy way to share a snippet of information about your current read and to perhaps tempt others. Stop on by and link up with Tenacious Reader. This Friday I’m reading : Owl and the Electric Samurai (The Adventures of Owl #3) by Kristi Charish
Have you ever had a deep-seated feeling that the world is out to get you?
And I don’t mean for doing something where you might actually deserve it: I mean the kind that happens despite your best intentions to be a good person, turn over a new leaf, and potentially make up for a possible – though clearly not intentional – slight you may have done others…
And even though you may be doing your damnedest to fix things, including crossing the globe twice in the last month, you could feel that the universe still decided it was going to tell you that you could royally fuck off?
You know, that kind of “out to get you” feeling?
Because from this side of the backpacker hostel picnic table, sitting across from my Nepal contact, Dev, that was pretty much the vibe I was getting. To be honest, it was the vibe I’d been getting all month, like gum getting tangled in your hair.
My First Impressions
I think that beginning is a perfect start for the book and a great reflection of the series as well. You can tell already, even from those first few lines, that things are going to go horribly wrong.
What you reading this Friday?? What are your first impressions??
*The above excerpt was taken from an advanced reader copy and it is possible that the final version may have further changes.
Friday Firsts: The White Road by Sarah Lotz
28 April 2017
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Friday Firsts, Sarah Lotz, tenacious reader, The White Road
Friday Firsts is a new meme that runs every Friday over on Tenacious Reader. The idea is to feature the first few sentences/paragraph of your current book and try and outline your first impressions as a result. This is a quick and easy way to share a snippet of information about your current read and to perhaps tempt others. Stop on by and link up with Tenacious Reader. This Friday I’m reading : The White Road by Sarah Lotz.
Hi T.
No easy way to say this, but I’m going back to Tibet. Yeah. Back to the mountain, though I swore I never would, remember? Leave for Heathrow in 5. How’s that for casually dropping a bombshell? I’ve tried everything else, T, and going back is the only way. Got to the point where it’s this or a padded cell.
If I don’t make it home, there’s a dropbox file you should check out. Sounds ominous, I know, like I’ve gone full B-movie: If you’re reading this then I’m already dead…. Password is ‘fingersinyrheart06’. Anyway, read it. Or not. Up to you. Do whatever you want with it. Just needed to tell the truth. Put the record straight, you know?
Farewell and adieu, mate.
Aka
So long, and thanks for all the fish. Si
My First Impressions
Wow, what an excellent start. Yes, I was anxious to read on. I’ve read Sarah Lotz before and she’s very good. This book just really appealed to me and the start really struck a chord. I like books that start like this I must admit. And, yes, I’ve read on – I can barely put this down and even when I do it’s still on my mind.
What you reading this Friday?? What are your first impressions??
Books and travelling with Lynn 