RAINY DAY EXCERPTS: “NOT THAT I COULD TELL”

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, First Chapter/Intros, originally hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea and now hosted by I’d Rather Be at the Beach; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by The Purple Booker.

Today’s feature is my “up next” e-ARC from Jessica Strawser:  Not That I Could Tell, in which an innocent night of fun takes a shocking turn. (Release Date:  3/27)

 

Intro:  Everyone’s Favorite Place!

–TAGLINE OF THE YELLOW SPRINGS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Izzy awoke to a deafening downpour beating on the roof of her little Cape Cod.  It reached through the dense fog of heavy sleep, through the punishing pain of the previous night’s overindulgence, and tugged at the corner of her conscious mind just enough to pull it aside and reveal the too-familiar memory of Josh hovering there.  In an instant, she regretted it all — the last glasses of wine that had brought on this ache and this haze, the humiliation of having told her new neighbors all they never needed to know about Josh, even the purchase of this house that placed the pounding rain just on the other side of the ceiling that sloped down to meet her bed.

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Teaser:  “Wait for Mommy!  Wait for Mommy!” the woman was crying, lunging to grab one of his limbs, coming up empty, and Clara watched her body jerk in indecision between running along the ground beneath the edge and climbing up after him. (60%).

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Synopsis:  When a group of neighborhood women gathers, wine in hand, around a fire pit where their backyards meet one Saturday night, most of them are just ecstatic to have discovered that their baby monitors reach that far. It’s a rare kid-free night, and they’re giddy with it. They drink too much, and the conversation turns personal.

By Monday morning, one of them is gone.

Everyone knows something about everyone else in the quirky small Ohio town of Yellow Springs, but no one can make sense of the disappearance. Kristin was a sociable twin mom, college administrator, and doctor’s wife who didn’t seem all that bothered by her impending divorce—and the investigation turns up more questions than answers, with her husband, Paul, at the center. For her closest neighbor, Clara, the incident triggers memories she thought she’d put behind her—and when she’s unable to extract herself from the widening circle of scrutiny, her own suspicions quickly grow. But the neighborhood’s newest addition, Izzy, is determined not to jump to any conclusions—especially since she’s dealing with a crisis of her own.

As the police investigation goes from a media circus to a cold case, the neighbors are forced to reexamine what’s going on behind their own closed doors—and to ask how well anyone really knows anyone else.

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What do you think?  Would you keep reading?

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