Book Beginning: Night in Shanghai by Nicole Mones

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

The years before the war forced everyone in Shanghai to choose: Nationalists or Communists? Resist the Japanese invaders or collaborate with them?

-- Night in Shanghai by Nicole Mones.  Great beginning for setting the scene in pre-WWII Shanghai. But it doesn't hint at the terrific premise, which is how black American jazz musicians expatriated to Shanghai in the 1930s to avoid prejudice in the US.

Mones put meticulous research into this sliver of fascinating history.  But the historical details never bog down the exciting, sexy story of an American pianist falling in love with a Chinese spy. Great stuff!

Night in Shanghai is the fourth novel by Nicole Mones, following Lost in Translation, A Cup of Light, and The Last Chinese Chef.

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

Last week was a banner book week for me. Four books came into my house. They are as different as can be but all look great!



Night in Shanghai by Nicole Mones. I love her books! This one is a romantic adventure set in 1930s Shanghai. The hero is a black American jazz musician; the heroine is a young Chinese woman bonded into servitude to pay her father's gambling debts.  Their lives collide when the Japanese invade Shanghai.



 The Other Side of Paradise: Life in the New Cuba by Julia Cooke.  Cooke is a journalist who spent five years "embedded" in Cuba after Fidel Castro stepped down as President.  By focusing on the lives of young adults -- the "last generation of Cubans raised under Fidel Castro" -- Cooke offers a fresh and timely look at real life in Cuba.



 Small Town Trouble by Jean Erhardt.  This is the first in a new mystery series featuring Kim Claypoole, a restaurateur and amateur sleuth with her home base in the Smokey Mountains.



The Next Tsunami: Living on a Restless Coast by Bonnie Henderson, published by OSU Press.  Henderson mixes science, history, and first-hand accounts to explain how the next mega-quake under the Pacific Ocean will generate a tsunami "likely to be the most devastating natural disaster in the history of the United States."

Book Beginning: The Rich are Different by Susan Howatch

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

I was in London when I first heard of Dinah Slade. She was broke and looking for a millionaire, while I was rich and looking for a mistress. From the start we were deeply compatible.

-- The Rich are Different by Susan Howatch. This is one of those sprawling, intergenerational sagas that were so popular in the 1970s. I ate them up in Junior High, including this one, although I don't remember anything about the plot now.

Howatch knows how to weave a yarn. This one starts in the 1920s, when the heroine -- a 21-year-old, precocious, bluestocking with a Cambridge degree and a moldering Norfolk mansion -- charms a New York banker into her bed and out of a loan sufficient to pay the debt on her mansion and launch her cosmetics company. I love these big, shaggy stories.

It's My 6th Blogiversary!

If this wasn't a crazy busy week for me, I would ponder what's it's been like to have a book blog for six whole years and share some thoughts. I'll have to save them for my 7th blogiversary!

Teaser Tuesday: Meander Scars by Abby Phillips Metzger.

. . . [I]slands form in all kinds of ways, sometimes because of high water or at a confluence where the force of one river meets another. . . . Some last a few decades, others centuries, which in the sceme of a river is not a long time. 

-- Meander Scars: Reflections on Healing the Willamette River by Abby Phillips Metzger, published by OSU Press.

Metzger grew up alongside Oregon's Willamette River.  In her essays, she explores how Oregon's now-tame river could reconnect with its wild history.  She relies on her own keen observations as well as stories from farmers, scientists, and conservationists to share her vision for this beautiful river.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.