The Half Life of Guilt by Lynn Stegner -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Half Life of Guilt by Lynn Stegner

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

From above, the airstrip is a dark scar on the land, an unnatural feature in the sprawling Vizcaino Desert with its soft shadings of buff and dun.

-- from The Half Life of Guilt by Lynn Stegner.

Stegner's new novel involves a married couple on an environmental mission in Mexico who are also wrestling with rough experiences in their pasts. It launched last week and looks terrific. 

See the Publisher's Description below for more details. If you like a tear jerker, this one is for you! 

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 Half Life of Guilt:

He embraced his wife and tended his vineyards and tasted without tasting the wine; he read to the Twins stories, he fed them food, he took their hands when a father's hand was asked But these acts found no purchase in his heart, for nothing new could take root there, no living experience could grow in the hard pan of loss.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Stegner tells the story of Clair Bugato and Mason Comstock. Together they journey to the world's largest saltworks in Baja California, where a proposed expansion threatens the California gray whale population, recently come back from the brink of extinction.

In the midst of a conservation battle, they meet a mysterious son of Mexico, Rubio Cantú, who leads them to the powers that be. Their two-week journey sends Clair deep into the past, where she reviews the divergent paths she and her near-identical twin sister have taken away from a childhood tragedy. At the same time, Mason confronts his own unhappy past in Cornwall, England, with a father whose hate was stronger than his love.

No other work of fiction patterns the warp and weft of human guilt, the homesickness only love can cure, environmental crises, the intrinsic conflict between international commerce and planetary health, and the necessity of forgiveness. The Half-Life of Guilt is woven from these themes, delivering to the reader an engrossing and transformative literary experience.