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

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 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. 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Unprintable by Julie Kaewert

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.

When you read this, I will be in Athens, Greece, with my mother and sister. (Leaving my beleaguered husband home without me.) Unprintable by Julie Kaewert is one of the books I brought with me to read on vacation.

I had to schedule the post, so let's hope it works. If not, my apologies. I'll be back August 21. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

There's nothing like the joy of placing pristine handmade paper in a press, clicking bits of type into a composing stick and breathing the exotic aroma of oil-based ink.

-- from Unprintable by Julie Kaewert.  

Julie Kaewert wrote a series of Un- books (Unsolicited, Uncatalogued, etc.), cozy-ish mysteries featuring Alex Plumbtree, owner of Plumtree Press. Unprintable is the only one I've read. It is the third in the series, but it doesn't seem necessary to read them in order. 

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 Unprintable :

Pulling up into the long drive with the crunch of gravel under the wheels, I relaxed. At least here there were no screaming hordes of journalists.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

It is possibly the most repugnant piece of fiction in all of England. So why is Plumtree Press, one of the country's most respectable publishing houses, about to add the hotly controversial new novel to its list? Publisher Alex Plumtree isn't talking. Hardly anyone knows he has taken on the project as a favor to the Prime Minister.

Forget the bad press and hateful reviews. Alex swiftly finds himself on the wrong side of a lawsuit, bugged, betrayed, roughed up, and implicated in murder. Suddenly Alex doesn't know who[m] to trust.

Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy

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.

I leave next week for vacation with my mom and sister. We will be gone three weeks (my husband is grumpy about this), so I am anxious about which and how many books to bring. 

Here's one I know I will bring. Over the next few weeks, you will see others I picked. I have to schedule the posts until I get back, so I am crossing my fingers they all work. I'll be back in real time on August 21.  

MY BOOK BEGINNING

It had been very dull and matter-of-fact in the coroner's court.

-- from the prelude to Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy.

Violet finished the library book and closed it with a snap. Yet again, a self-doubting, fluttery, bird-brain heroin had been swept away by a masterful man.

-- from Part One, 1940 - 1945, Chapter 1.

I'm a big Maeve Binchy fan, so I don't understand why I have never read Light a Penny Candle, her first and perhaps most popular novel. I love her long, shaggy "Aga sagas" full of big messes that get tidied up for a satisfactory and happy ending. 

 

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 Light a Penny Candle:

The air was so full of gratitude and re-examination of gifts that none of them except Elizabeth noted the anxious glances exchanged between Auntie Eileen and Uncle Sean. She couldn't interpret them —it was as if they alone had seen some hidden disaster.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

To escape the chaos of London during World War II, young Elizabeth White is sent to live a safer life in the small Irish town of Kilgarret. It is there, in the crowded, chaotic O’Connor household, that she meet Aisling—a girl who soon becomes her very best friend, sharing her pet kitten and secretly teaching her the intricacies of Catholicism.

Aisling’s boldness brings Elizabeth out of her proper shell; later, her support carries Elizabeth through the painful end of her parents’ chilly marriage. In return, Elizabeth’s friendship helps Aisling endure her own unsatisfying marriage to a raging alcoholic. Through the years, they come to believe they can overcome any conflict, conquer any hardship—as long as they have each other. Now they’re about to find out if they're right...

The Elements by John Boyne -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Elements by John Boyne

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

The first thing I do when I arrive on the island is change my name.

-- from The Elements by John Boyne. 

Well, that's a terrific opening sentence! Boyne knows how to spin a yarn. 

I've only read one book by John Boyne, A Ladder to the Sky. It was a well-executed and gripping story, but it left me cold. It has the same casual amorality that bothers me about Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley books. I like an anti-hero who is a grumpy curmudgeon, like Jackson Lamb in the Slow Horses books, but not an anti-hero who is an unrepentant, unconvicted, murderer. 

That explains why I have not been quick to pick up another Boyne book. But he has so many! I need to give him another chance. I was happy, for that reason, to get an ARC of his new book, The Elements from Henry Holt & Company.  The Elements launches on September 9, 2025.

The Elements brings together the stories of four people -- a mother seeking a new life, a young man on trial for sexual assault, a surgeon hobbled by past trauma, and a father trying to connect with his teenage son. Interestingly, the four stories were published as four separate books, Water (2023), Earth (2024), Fire (2024), and Air (2025). The Elements is an omnibus edition containing all four. 

I much prefer the UK cover to the American cover above. This is the UK cover. What do you think?

 

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 The Elements:

I kept busy with the trappings of being an affluent, middle-class woman in South Dublin. I arranged spa days with my friends, had regular appointments with my hairdresser, became -- for a time -- obsessed with Bikram yoga.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

In The Elements, acclaimed Irish novelist John Boyne has created an epic saga that weaves together four interconnected narratives, each representing a different perspective on crime: the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator, and the victim.

The narrative follows a mother on the run from her past, a young soccer star facing a trial, a successful surgeon grappling with childhood trauma, and a father on a transformative journey with his son. Each is somehow connected to the next, and as the story unfolds, their lives intersect in unimaginable ways.

Boyne’s most ambitious work yet, The Elements is both an engrossing drama and a moving investigation of why and how we allow crime to occur.

On My Honor: The Secret History of the Boy Scouts of America by Kim Christensen -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

On My Honor: The Secret History of the Boy Scouts of America by Kim Christensen

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

A few weeks after he left the White House in March 1909, Theodore Roosevelt sailed to Africa on a wildlife expedition to collect specimens for the Smithsonian Institute's new Natural History Museum.

-- from On My Honor: The Secret History of the Boy Scouts of America by Kim Christensen, Chapter 1, "Feuding Founders and the Boy Problem."

On My Honor exposes the Boy Scouts of America's long history of childhood sexual abuse and its cover up. Kim Christensen, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, worked on this book for years, although it was sadly published right after he died of cancer. Christensen poured through BSA's own "Perversion Files" on child molesters in Scouting and worked with lawyers like me to get the record straight. 

This book is heartbreaking for me because I've spent the past 18 years representing adults who were sexually abused when they were children in Scouting. I've heard all the stories and seen for myself the way sexual abuse left these men -- and several women -- emotionally and psychologically damaged. 

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.

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
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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 On My Honor:

"They fought tooth and nail that we didn't get those [Perversion] files, and they dumped them on us a week before trial," recalled Portland attorney Gilion Dumas, a member of the Lewis's legal team. . . . But even from her first-glance reading, Dumas said, clear patterns of children sexual abuse -- and the organization's response to it -- leaped out.

So, yes, I fidged on the page 56 part. This teaser is from page 114, but I wanted to use it because it's not every day I'm quoted in a book!

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Since its founding in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America has been the nation’s premier youth organization, espousing self-reliance and honor. More than 100 million Americans have been Boy Scouts, from Bill Gates to Martin Luther King Jr. Today, however, Scouting faces an existential threat of its own making: more than 82,000 former Scouts have filed claims alleging they were sexually abused—seven times the number of similar allegations that rocked the Catholic Church two decades ago.

On My Honor untangles the full story of the Boy Scouts of America, tracking its creation, growth, influence, and the massive generational trauma it has caused. Using the iconic institution to tell a story of American values over the last century, the book grapples with America’s changing understanding of what it means to “make men.”