The Austen Sisters by Dee Blankenship -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Austen Sisters by Dee Blankenship

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

I am still cruisin' with my mom and sister, so pre-scheduled this post. Apologies if there are any problems! 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The eldest of the five sisters, Elinor Austen, is possessed with all the qualities expected of an older sister. 

-- from the Prologue to The Austen Sisters by Dee Blankenship, subtitled "A Modern Day Tale of Pride, Persuasion, and Sensibilities."

Eleanor caught sight of the gate for her flight and let out a sigh of relief.

-- from Chapter 1, "Elinor."

I like the way The Austen Sisters starts. The first sentence of the Prologue sounds like something Jane Austen would have written, with old fashioned words. A modern translation might be, "The oldest of the five sisters, Elinor Austen has the typical personality of an older sister." Then the first sentence of Chapter 1 makes is very clear we are in modern times because she is at an airport. Cleverly done. 

2025 marks the sestercentennial* of Jane Austen's birth. I'm commemorating the event by rereading her six main novels in publication order, one every other month. I finished Emma (my favorite) in July and have only Northanger Abby and Persuasion left. 

I had intended to incorporate Austen fan fiction into my celebration, but am not really a fan of fan fiction. Then I saw The Austen Sisters and knew I had found an homage I wanted to read. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from The Austen Sisters:

With an easy grin, Frank Churchill spoke up. "One of our buddies isn't feeling his best this morning, so we were hoping to charm one of you lovely ladies into joining us."

Frank Churchill is a flirtatious charmer in Emma. I like that the characters in The Austen Sisters have the names and mannerisms of the characters in Jane Austen's books. 

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

In this contemporary reimagining of Jane Austen’s beloved novels, five sisters, each embodying the spirit of Austen’s heroines, gather at the luxurious Mansfield Park Resort for their cousin Fanny’s wedding.

As the festivities unfold, tensions rise, misunderstandings abound, old flames reignite, and the sisters find themselves swept up in a whirlwind of romance that feels strangely familiar. After all, love, even in the modern day, still follows the timeless wisdom of Austen’s pen.

* Of all the potential words for a 250th anniversary -- semiquincentennial, sestercentennial, bicenquinquagenary, and bisesquicentennial -- sestercentennial is the only one I can possibly pronounce, so I'm sticking with it. I've also seen quarter millennium, but that just sounds wrong. 

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.” Henry kept chanting the line out loud over the roar of the helicopter’s engine.

-- from Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan.

I loved the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, so was excited when my book club picked this for our next discussion. I'm now well into it and have been enjoying it, but not nearly as much as the CRA trilogy. Maybe the shine has worn off Kwan's style, or maybe this one is just a little too much. It's still a ton of fun, and I am very happy to be reading it, but it doesn't feel fresh and exciting like his first books.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Lies and Weddings:

Eden couldn’t fathom what the countess was referring to, but she knew the only appropriate response at this moment was to nod. She had been aware since a very young age that the countess didn’t consider the Tongs as equal to the Greshams —as the family doctor, Thomas Tong was barely a notch above the butler, and Eden merely a playmate for her children when it suited them.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Rufus Leung Gresham, future Earl of Greshambury and son of a former Hong Kong supermodel has a problem: the legendary Gresham Trust has been depleted by decades of profligate spending, and behind all the magazine covers and Instagram stories manors and yachts lies nothing more than a gargantuan mountain of debt. The only solution, put forth by Rufus’s scheming mother, is for Rufus to attend his sister’s wedding at a luxury eco-resort, a veritable who’s-who of sultans, barons, and oligarchs, and seduce a woman with money.
. . . .
Can the once-great dukedom rise from the ashes? Or will a secret tragedy, hidden for two decades, reveal a shocking twist?

Christmas in London by Anita Hughes -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Christmas in London by Anita Hughes

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Louisa nudged open the industrial-sized oven And thought nothing smelled as wonderful as cinnamon and nutmeg nine days before Christmas.

-- from Christmas in London by Anita Hughes.

I am trying to read only Christmas-themed books this month. I think about this every year, and this is the year I am finally going to try. I have a stack of Christmas books to read with my eyes. My difficulty is finding audio books. 

I ended up downloading several from the library and am going through them, hit or miss. I mostly found romance books and cozy mysteries. I have nothing against those genres, but they are not the first I pick when looking for something to read. I've sent a few back after the first few minutes of listening because the story was too sappy or the narrator's voice grated on my nerves. 

Christmas in London seems to have a bit more going for it. It's still a romcom, but there is a story to it, however implausible. Louisa is a baker in New York and gets the entirely implausible opportunity to go to London to fill in for America's most famous female chef on the most popular cooking program in London. So she gets a whirlwind, all-expense-paid trip to London, with a makeover and romance thrown in. 

For sure I need a double dose of the usual willing suspension of disbelief. But I'm thinking these books are the reading equivalent of eggnog -- a Christmas-only treat too sweet for the rest of the year,

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Christmas in London:

Louisa pulled her eyes from a display of Christmas crackers and followed him to the middle of the store. The Christmas tree was five stories tall and seemed as wide as an ocean liner.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Set during London's most festive time of year and filled with delicious food Anita Hughes' Christmas in London is about love and friendship, and the season's most important lesson: learning how to ask for and give forgiveness.

Christmas Reading -- BOOK THOUGHTS

 

BOOK THOUGHTS

Christmas Reading

Every year, I aspire to read only Christmas-themed books in December. I love Christmas and want to immerse myself in holiday books, movies, food, drinks, parties, decorations – all of it. Then December rolls around and I always have other books I want to read before the end of the year, so I abandon the Christmas book plan.

Not this year! I finished all my TBR 24 in '24 books before November. I’m caught up on my IRL book club books. I don’t have any Instagram buddy reads until January. So this year I am all in on Christmas reading.

Here’s my stack of Christmas book possibilities. I hope to get to as many of these as I can, although I suspect I’ll have a few left over for next year.

🎄 There Came Both Mist and Snow by Michael Innes. I love vintage mysteries and a winter setting makes it all the better. 

🎄 Singin’ and Swingin’ and Getting’ Merry Like Christmas by Maya Angelou. I haven't read any of her books and I love the title of this one. It's a collection of essays and, maybe, poems. I haven't looked through it yet.

🎄 Christmas Stories by Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol is in here, but so are the other Christmas stories he wrote to publish each December. I've read these all before, so this would be a reread for me, if I get to it. 

🎄 The White Priory Murders by Carter Dickson. I love the British Library Crime Classics series and know they have several with a Christmas theme. Unfortunately, they are not easy to find in the US. I have a few, but this is the only Christmas one. 

🎄 Christmas by Elizabeth David. I read a book of David's food writing earlier this year. I like the idea of a collection of Christmas food essays. 

🎄 A Redbird Christmas by Fanny Flagg. I see this one around a lot and loved her Fried Green Tomatoes book, so am looking forward to this one. 

🎄 The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart. OK, so this is not exactly on point. It isn't a Christmas books. But I'm always looking for festive holiday cocktails and the book looked great in the stack. 

🎄 Christmas Holiday by W. Somerset Maugham. I'm reading this one now and it's a good story. It is about a young man living in London who goes to Paris over Christmas and meets a Russian prostitute married to a murderer. That's quite a yarn! It's more engaging than many a Maugham read.

🎄 A Christmas Treasury of Yuletide Stories & Poems, edited by James Charlton and Barbara Gilson. This might be really sappy, but I'll give it a go. 

🎄 Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas by Anja Dunk. This Christmas cookbook looks gorgeous. I plan to read it cover to cover, like a book. 

🎄 The St. Nicholas Anthology, edited by Henry Steele Commager. This is another collection of Christmas bits and bobs. It might be really sappy because it was published in 1948.

🎄 The Official Downton Abbey Christmas Cookbook by Regula Ysewijn and Julian Fellowes. O couldn't resist this one because it is full of Downton pictures and old-fashioned recipes. Another cookbook I will read straight through. 

I also have several Christmas books lined up on my library app to read with my ears because I read a lot of audiobooks, especially while I putter around decorating the house and tree, baking treats, and wrapping presents. The audiobooks I picked are not by authors I’ve read before and they are almost all cozy mysteries or romcoms. I have nothing against either genre, but they aren’t my usual picks. 

We’ll see how this part goes. I've tried a couple that were too sticky sweet for me and I returned them after a few minutes of listening. I listened to a cozy mystery with a rare book dealer as the amateur sleuth and it had some plot holes big enough for Santa's sleigh.

Do you have any suggestions for Christmas reads not in my stack already? I'm planning ahead for next year already. 

Riders by Jilly Cooper -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Riders by Jilly Cooper

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Because he had to get up unusually early on Saturday, Jake Lovell kept waking up throughout the night, racked by terrifying dreams about being late.

-- from Riders by Jilly Cooper. We can all relate to that opening sentence!

I had never heard of Jilly Cooper until I saw this cover on Instagram last week. It is one to catch the eye! I went down a Jilly Cooper rabbit hole and can't believe the fun I've been missing. Her books sound like pure, escapist fun, especially the Rutshire Chronicles series, of which Riders is the first of 11. Riders was first published in 1985, but not with this racy cover from the 2015 reissue.

 You can buy Riders on the US amazon site, but it is expensive. I got this brand new copy from Blackwell's Books in England for a very reasonable price, including free delivery to the US. And it got here in about a week. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Riders:

The hostess was kind, but too distraught about gate crashers to introduce Tory to more than two young men, who both, as usual, danced one dance, then led her back and propped her against a pillar like an old umbrella, pretending they were just off to get her a drink or had to dance with their hostess. Thinking about Jake non-stop didn't insulate her from the misery of it all.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Set against the glorious Cotswold countryside and the playgrounds of the world, Jilly Cooper's Rutshire Chronicles . . . offer an intoxicating blend of skulduggery, swooning romance, sexual adventure and hilarious high jinks.

Riders, the first and steamiest in the series, takes the lid off international showjumping, a sport where the brave horses are almost human, but the humans behave like animals.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Well, I was on vacation and got back too late last night to post in time. So here is a very late Book Beginnings on Fridays post! 

I took this Emily Henry book because it seems like the perfect travel book. I loved it and ripped through it on the plane ride home from Omaha. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

On vacation, you can be anyone you want.

-- People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry. 

I don’t typically read “romance” books. But there’s a fuzzy line between full on romance novels and the chicklit I secretly love — when it’s clever and sassy.

A while back, I found a copy of Emily Henry’s Book Lovers in a Little Free Library in my neighborhood. It was definitely clever and sassy! I wanted to read her other books so took People We Meet on Vacation with me when I visited my mom in Nebraska. It is completely different but just as funny and fun.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please share the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings. 

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THE FRIDAY 56

Another fun Friday event is The Friday 56. Share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your book, or 56% of the way through your e-book or audiobook, on this weekly event hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From People We Meet on Vacation:

“There is literally no one on earth better equipped to have a magical vacation than a travel journalist with a big-ass media conglomerate’s checkbook. If you can’t have an inspired trip, then how the hell do you expect the rest of the world to?”

Mailbox Monday: Four New Books for Corona Stay-at-Home

Four new books showed up at my house last week. I don't know about you, but looking forward to book mail is a big part of my corona stay-at-home lifestyle. What new books came into your house last week?

The book I am most excited about is an advance copy of Hidden Falls by Kevin Myers.



Hidden Falls is part mystery, part romcom, part mid-life crisis story of Michael Quinn. When his father dies unexpectedly, Michael returns to Boston to wrap up family affairs and run away from personal problems, only to learn his dad had ties with organized crime.

Judd Apato who directed and co-wrote The 40-Year Old Virgin with Steve Carell described Kevin Myers' new book:

"Hidden Falls is like Dennis Lehane and David Sedaris got together to write a romantic comedy. It's intelligent, charming, and the perfect combination of funny and thrilling."

Hidden Falls is available for pre-order now. The Kindle edition drops June 2, 2020. The hardback ships July 15, 2020.

These other three books also look terrific:



Creole Son: An Adoptive Mother Untangles Nature and Nurture by E. Kay Trimberger. This new memoir is the story of how Kay Trimberger became the single white mother of an adopted biracial son and watched him grow into a troubled your who struggled with addiction. Trimberger draws on her training as a sociologist to explore how biological heritage and the environment adopted children are raised in interact to shape adult outcomes.

Trimberger writes for a general audience and hopes her book will provide support to all parents with troubled off spring. Creole Son is out now from LSU Press.



Empires by John Balaban. Poet John Balaban's eighth collection of poetry focuses on key moments in history when culture shifts and imperial eras come to an end. There are poems about Viking traders, Washington crossing the Delaware, a Romanian Jew waiting for the Nazis, and a train ride through the American South after Obama's election.

Empires is available now, published by Copper Canyon Press.



The Benefit of Hindsight by Susan Hill. This is the 10th book in Hill's Simon Serrailler series. I haven't read any of this series before, so I am going to dive in with this one and, if I like it, start over from the beginning.

I found this one in one of the many Little Free Libraries that dot our neighborhood. Apparently our LFLs are more cutting edge than amazon because the copy I found is a UK paperback edition. The paperback is not out in the US yet. Yet another blessing of the neighborhood walks that have kept me sane during coronavirus!

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday, a weekly "show & tell" blog event where participants share the books they acquired the week before. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught our Eye.

Mailbox Monday is graciously hosted by Leslie of Under My Apple Tree, Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, and Martha of Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf.