Rose City Reader

Thursday, October 20, 2022

The Man Who Came and Went by Joe Stillman -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Welcome back to Book Beginnings on Fridays, where participants share the opening sentence (or so) of the book they are reading this week. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Before I can start this story, I have to tell you something that happened near the end of it.

-- from The Man Who Came and Went by Joe Stillman.

The Man Who Came and Went is a new type of Western, a character-driven story with elements of magical realism, fantasy, and metaphysics.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Man Who Came and Went:

When Harold wrote about the encounter, he included the part where he and his cousin Marguerite outside Maybelle's diner. He wrote that he was skeptical about some supposedly mind-reading grill cook, but that he suddenly had an opening that morning and decided to go where the muse sent him.

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION

The Man Who Came and Went, a novel of the new west, is a magically realistic story for the modern era that will tease your understanding and beliefs, and draw you into the mysteries of the universe, from the brilliant mind of Joe Stillman, acclaimed Academy Award nominated co-writer of "Shrek."

Fifteen-year-old Belutha Mariah, our storyteller, is the oldest of three kids from three different fathers. Her life's goal is to keep her dysfunctional mom, Maybell, from procreating yet again and then to leave the coffin-sized town of Hadley, Arizona the second she graduates high school.

Along comes the new grill cook at Maybell's Diner, Bill Bill, a mysterious drifter with the ability to mind-read orders. As word spreads in Hadley and beyond, the curious and desperate pour into this small desert town to eat at Maybell's.

Some believe Bill knows the secrets of the universe.

Belutha figures he's probably nuts. But his cooking starts to transform the lives of locals and visitors, and Belutha finds her angry heart opening, as Bill begins to show her the porous boundary between this life and what comes after.

In a normal American town, something new and strange, and yet achingly familiar, begins to unfold.

Thursday, October 13, 2022

It's Always 9/11 by Wendy Avra Gordon -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

"All I do is sell food particles."

I was sitting at a picnic table overlooking the Pacific Ocean with Ryan, drinking Galactica Zinfandel from the bottle.

-- from It's Always 9/11 by Wendy Avra Gordon.

Gordon's second novel came out last year. Set in a dystopian "not to distant future," It's Always 9/11 is the story of a family trying to live a normal life in the middle of increasingly difficult daily circumstances and scary political developments. Until they decide they can't sit passively by, waiting for things to change.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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

THE FRIDAY 56

"Children's books are hardly a state secret, are they? There's an online competition, and if I get enough votes, I get free fabric."

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION

Most people say wait it out.

After all, President Kaspar isn't as bad as expected. He's banned fracking, improved medical care, even provided every American over eight with a free cell phone! So what if the number of news channels has shrunk to three, and no one can afford email anymore? Even when a health crisis in New York City shakes the country to its core and raises the specter of authoritarianism, President Kaspar explains it all calmly in his cardigan sweater.

Most people say wait it out.

New York City transplant Tessa lives in a leafy Portland, Oregon neighborhood with her husband Larry and teenage son Holden. They are 3,000 miles away, but that is too close for comfort.

They can't wait it out. They take a different path--one that will shatter their lives, their identities, and change the course of a nation.

Thursday, October 6, 2022

The Sturgeon's Heart: A Novel by Amy E. Casey -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Howard Wright was always cold, even during the fleeting Duluth summers. Part of it was the chill of the night wind that came in through his upstairs apartment window, bearing with the news of the lake's ever-shifting mood.

-- from The Sturgeon's Heart: A Novel by Amy E. Casey.

Described as a "contemporary monster story," Amy E. Casey's debut novel came out earlier this year from Gibson House Press.

I admit that the premise is a little offputting to me because I don't like magical realism, fantasy, or the like. But a lot of people do. The story is about three people drawn together as their lives are falling apart. One of them is becoming transparent. Literally. His skin is becoming see-through.

Read the publisher's description below. What do you think? Maybe it would make a perfect book for Halloween time. Would you read it?

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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

THE FRIDAY 56

In case she ever needed to leave quickly, she could load the station wagon until it was full, and the cabin would look like nothing more than an abandoned vacation home fallen into disrepair. She had planned it out twenty-eight different times.

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION

Three people in the same northern city of Duluth, Minnesota, are vanishing in different ways.

Howard Wright finds his skin turning transparent, revealing the bloody workings of musculature beneath. His body becomes otherworldly and insistent, spinning him into visions that echo trauma from his childhood.

Sarah Turnsfield is living under an assumed identity, on the run from her past as a meteoric scientific prodigy. Content to work as a grocery clerk, she is determined to live a life on her own terms, where the landscape of her mind is hers alone.

Jo Breckmier seeks a new start in Duluth after a bitter divorce. She moves into the apartment unit across from Howard’s, leaning on alcohol and a stubborn will to reinvent herself. The woods and the lake seem to call to her as she laments her shipwrecked life.

When instinct, the swiftly warming spring, and Howard’s monstrous body conspire to bring the three together, each will discover how long they can hide―Jo from her loneliness, Sarah from her rising paranoia, and Howard from his intensifying transformation.

On one remarkable night along the rugged shore of Lake Superior, the lines between reality and legend intersect. Identities are broken and remade.

In this contemporary monster story, the earth itself amplifies both the grotesque and the beautiful.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

The Mad, Mad, Murders of Marigold Way by Raymond Benson -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Friends, this is a little tale about some murders.

-- from The Mad, Mad, Murders of Marigold Way by Raymond Benson (2022, Beaufort Books).

This new dramedy mystery comes out next week, on October 4, and is available for pre-order now. Not only is the book brand new, the story is set in a Chicago suburb during the covid pandemic, so feels like it takes place right this minute.

I scored an ARC from the LibraryThing early reviewer program. It looks like a perfect book to read during the October spooky season. Not too scary but just enough to put me in the mood for Halloween!

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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

THE FRIDAY 56

As the truck approached, it slowed down. It crept past the empty Wilkins house, and then slowly moved on in front of Scott's home towards Temple Avenue.

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION

For Scott Hatcher, a former television writer turned struggling novelist with a failing marriage to boot, social-distancing and mask-wearing feel like fitting additions to his already surreal life. When his wife Marie and neighbor John Bergman disappear in the middle of the raging COVID-19 pandemic, Scott is naturally mystified and disturbed, but he is also about to learn that his picturesque neighborhood hides more than just the mundane routines of suburban life.

When a fire claims the empty house for sale next door, the entire community is shocked when the charred remains of Marie and John are found inside. Stranger still, stockpiles of valuable Personal Protection Equipment, clearly stolen, were destroyed in the blaze alongside them. As the neighborhood reels from the loss, Scott and Bergman's earthy and enticing widow, Rachel, not only find themselves under investigation for the crime, but also inexorably drawn to one another. As tensions reach a fever pitch, the tale—which is at once familiar and ordinary, yet bizarre and eerie—shows that, just like life in 2020's uncertain times, dread and danger lurk below the hidden underside of everyday suburbia.

Monday, September 26, 2022

New Books of Poetry and Historical Fiction -- MAILBOX MONDAY

MAILBOX MONDAY

What new books came into your house lately?

I'm excited about these two new books, out recently. Although the books are completely different, I love both covers and how gorgeous they look together!

A Story Interrupted by Connie Soper (2022, Airlie Press)

This is Soper's first book of poetry. From the description and flipping through it, it looks like these are sort of poems I am drawn to. They are poems about actual places and experiences, not abstract ideas. I like something I can latch onto and relate to when I read a poem. I don't like to feel like the whole thing is going over my head.

From the publisher's description:

Connie Soper’s first book of poetry invites readers to wander the trails of Oregon’s lush and fertile forests, and to celebrate its beaches, coastal cliffs, and headlands. She explores her native terrain with a reverence for the wild and untamed, as well as smaller moments spent in solitude. A Story Interrupted opens its map of place, memory, and inheritances—a map both familiar and uncharted. These poems offer glimpses, as well, of more distant traveled lands, always rooted in a keenly observed sense of place and belonging. These poems recall tender moments and conjure memories that connect us with our past, even if that past is sometimes difficult to acknowledge. Here, open-endedness is not melancholy but joy, each poem a small celebration.

Water Fire Steam by Mitzi Zilka (2022)

This new historical fiction novel is based on real life events and sounds excellent. The story sounds terrific and like it has broader themes that give it appeal beyond the exciting plot.

From the publisher's description:

The year is 1884. Rolla Alan Jones, an ambitious dreamer fresh out of an East Coast engineering school, is commissioned to design and build the first water system in Spokane Falls, Washington, a booming town of twenty-thousand. He is everyone's golden boy for five years until the city burns down on August 4, 1889. The once-celebrated engineer is scapegoated for the catastrophe alleging his system yielded inadequate water pressure. Asked to resign, betrayed by his friends, shunned by the community, and abandoned by his pregnant wife and three-year-old son, Rolla must find the strength to reinvent himself or return to New York as an abject failure. Based on a true story, Water Fire Steam is a story of forgiveness and redemption for anyone who has ever had to claw their way back from an unwarranted accusation.

YOUR MAILBOX MONDAY BOOKS

Join other book lovers on Mailbox Monday to share the books that came into your house lately. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught Our Eye.

Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, Martha of Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf, and Velvet of VVB32 Reads graciously host Mailbox Monday. Velvet wants to hand off hosting duties so they are looking for a new helper. If you are interested, see the website for details.

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