Teaser Tuesday - SINISTER SCENES

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is from SINISTER SCENES, the final installment of P. J. Bracegirdle's JOY OF SPOOKING trilogy:

"A fog poured inside the cemetery gates, rushing in like a ghostly tide. Over mounds and gullies the white vapor rolled, swallowing up markers and swirling around monuments, all the while pursuing a girl with straight blond hair." (p. 1)

MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN by Ransom Riggs

An original, delightful paranormal coming-of-age tale, MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN introduces Jacob, a boy who grew up listening to his grandfather's tales of monsters, accompanied by fake-looking photographs of extraordinary children. As Jacob grows older, he loses interest in the obviously false tales (presumed to be allegory for his grandfather's flight from the Nazis as a child) until he witnesses his grandfather's gruesome death by a tentacled creature. His grandfather's last words send Jacob to a remote Welsh island to uncover the mysteries of his grandfather's strange past as a refugee cared for by "The Bird," Miss Peregrine. Finding the bombed-out remains of the "orphanage" where his grandfather spent his childhood is only the beginning of his journey.

Riggs tells Jacob's peculiar story with the help of vintage photographs, which adds a whimsical yet grounding element to the tale.

Source disclosure: I purchased this book.

BOUND by Antonya Nelson

This is a beautiful little book, not, despite references to the BTK serial killer, a thriller or mystery. Instead, the killer hovers at the periphery of the novel, connecting past and present, rich and poor, emotion and reason. All the characters are bound to each other, and throughout the novel, their connections deepen and evolve. In the end, we are all connected, though some connections have more impact on us than others.

Catherine is at the novel's center. The third (her mother, Grace, would say "trophy") wife of the fickle Oliver, she is nearing the age at which Oliver has left his previous two wives for a younger sweetheart. She is fascinated by the coverage of the BTK killer, returned to Wichita after all these years. She and her improbable friend-from-the-other-side-of-the-tracks, Misty, had relished the coverage of the original killings during their high school years. When Misty dies, Catherine finds out that her old friend had not only named her now fifteen-year-old daughter after Catherine, but has left guardianship of Cattie to Catherine. Catherine, who had given up on having children (Oliver had had a child with each of his previous wives, then had a vasectomy), decides to meet the girl, who is currently missing, before making a decision. Cattie becomes a rescuer of dogs and fugitive along with the PTSD-stricken soldier, Randall, one of her housemates. Dogs play key roles in this novel: Cattie obsesses over the fate of Max, whose empty kennel was found in Misty's car, Catherine's beloved corgis stand in for her absent children, and Cattie and Randall rescue a dog they call Bitch and her puppies. The BTK killer is another thread that secures multiple connections, with even Catherine's intellectual mother, Grace, watching the coverage from her nursing home. Catherine reflects on her childhood in the wake of Misty's death and of the killer's return.

BOUND is a slender novel, more a long short story in feel, but Nelson's gift with language gives it a deep richness that excuses a few dangling threads that leave the reader speculating. Connections can be strengthened or made more tenuous, and it is refreshing not to find out how every connection ultimately ends.

Source disclosure: I purchased this book.

Teaser Tuesday - Jasper Fforde

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is from SOMETHING ROTTEN, the fourth book in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. If you've ever talked to me for more than five minutes, I've probably gone on and on about the brilliance of Fforde (postmodernism that isn't infatuated with its own cleverness!).

"I'd like Mel Gibson to play me," said Zhark thoughtfully.

"I don't think Gibson does bad guys. You'd probably be played by Geoffrey Rush or someone."

p.158

YES, MY DARLING DAUGHTER by Margaret Leroy

I give this one four stars for Gothic atmosphere and general creepiness, but only two stars as a novel. Leroy is an excellent writer, and the inexplicably creepy Irish seaside is a perfect setting for the bizarre. Grace's four-year-old daughter, Sylvie, is an odd child. She screams when water touches her face, suffers from hideous nightmares, and claims that her friend Lennie "is not MY Lennie." She draws the same house over and over and is obsessed with a photo of a place she's never been. With Grace's life falling apart, she tries a psychiatrist, and then, increasingly desperate, an expert in past lives. The novel takes some time to hit its stride, and Grace is an irritating woman. She throws on her tightest jeans and spindliest heels whenever an older man with rescuing potential is on the scene (Sylvie's uninvolved father was an older married man). She is reluctant to push Sylvie to find out the truth, which is natural, but not the way Grace waffles, which seems designed simply to add an extra hundred pages to the narrative. The paranormal psychologist, Adam, is not well fleshed-out, and his relationship with Grace lacks authenticity. Still, despite some eye-rollingly convenient coincidences, flimflamming to draw out the inevitable conclusions, and glaringly obvious clues, the creepy Gothic element is enjoyable. A good beach read.

Source disclosure: I purchased this book.