Death and Croissants by Ian Moore -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Death and Croissants by Ian Moore

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

Is there anything in this world quite as joyless a muesli?

-- from Death and Croissants by Ian Moore. Good question! I'd answer no. For reasons lost in time, the word muesli makes my sister and I laugh every time we hear it. So this opening sentence grabbed me immediately.

Death and Croissants is the first book in a series of cozy and funny mysteries set in the Loire Valley of France. The protagonist is an Englishman running a B&B outside a French village who gets caught up in a potential murder investigation. His sidekick is a beautiful woman with an overdeveloped sense of adventure. Just what Richard needs to take his mind off his failing marriage and absent wife. 

I turned to this one because I am so enjoying Martin Walker's Bruno, Chief of Police series, also set in a remote French village. While I wait for my library hold to come in on the next Bruno book, I turned to Ian Moore. I just finished the audiobook -- read by the author -- and loved it. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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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 Death and Croissants:

Her reply came dismissively in English, like a haughty Parisian waiter, bringing both annoyance and relief in equal measure. But with it came a friendly shrug, too, and all in an accent that in just one sentence veered from parody to femme fatale and back again.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION 

Meet Richard Ainsworth: an almost divorced part time B&B owner, part time film historian, full time self-deprecator. Hoping to continue running his B&B in the quiet Val de Follet, he has no idea of its hidden intrigue, from the mafia to swingers, to the peddling of (il)legal grape seeds. His quiet has flown the coop on a fateful afternoon with a bloody handprint, a missing guest, and one dead Ava Gardner (beloved hen).

Death and Croissants is an unputdownable, hilarious mystery perfect for fans of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club.

Unconditional Surrender by Evelyn Waugh -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Unconditional Surrender by Evelyn Waugh

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

When Guy Crouchback returned to his regiment in the autumn of 1941 his position was in many ways anomalous. 

-- from Unconditional Surrender by Evelyn Waugh.

Unconditional Surrender is the third novel in Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy, an fictional examination of WWII inspired by Waugh's own wartime experiences. Guy Crouchback is the often-humorous protagonist. I'm reading the trilogy with a group on Instagram, as we work our way through all of Waugh's books. 

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 Unconditional Surrender:

Jumbo Trotter would have devised a dozen perfectly regular means of absenting himself. He would, if all else failed, have posted himself to a senior officers' "refresher" course.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

By 1941, after serving in North Africa and Crete, Guy Crouchback has lost his Halberdier idealism. A desk job in London gives him the chance of reconciliation with his former wife. Then, in Yugoslavia, as a liaison officer with the partisans, Crouch becomes finally and fully aware of the futility of a war he once saw in terms of honor.

Unconditional Surrender is the third novel in Waugh's brilliant Sword of Honor trilogy recording the tumultuous wartime adventures of Guy Crouchback ("the finest work of fiction in English to emerge from World War II"-Atlantic Monthly), which also comprises Men at Arms and Officers and Gentlemen.

The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope

Yikes! I forgot to post yesterday because I was in Philadelphia for work all week and got home very late last night. Sorry for the delay and 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

No one, probably, ever felt himself to be more alone in the world than our old friend, the Duke of Omnium, when the Duchess died.

-- from The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope.

The Duke's Children is the sixth and final novel in Trollope's Palliser series, also known as the Parliamentary Novels. I've been reading the series all year with a readalong group on Instagram. I love them, although maybe not quite so much as I enjoyed the Barchester Chronicles. 

See the Publisher's Description below for more details.  

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.

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 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 Duke's Children:

But all this was now at an end. He told himself that he did not care how the elections might go;—that he did not care much how anything might go.

That seems like an appropriate teaser for this election week.  

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

After the sudden death of his wife, two years after he has left office as Prime Minister, the Duke of Omnium must become deeply involved with his children for the first time. They vex him enormously: with school expulsions, vast gambling debts, and what he considers to be calamitous romantic attachments. He tries to compel them to do what he wants, but they are not so easy to manage.

Even when his eldest child and heir, Lord Silverbridge, makes him proud by embarking upon a political career, the Duke grapples with heartache. For Silverbridge becomes a Conservative rather than a Liberal, flouting the family tradition. The relationship between father and son is drawn with remarkable subtlety, and the book as a whole becomes a piercing, yet often humorous, exploration of change: how both the young and the old resist, tolerate, or embrace it.