BOOKISH FRIDAYS: “THE OBSESSION”

On By Laurel-Rain SnowIn Bookish Friday

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Welcome to another Bookish Friday, in which I  share excerpts from books…and connect with other bloggers, who do the same.

Let’s begin the celebration by sharing Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and let’s showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

What better way to spend a Friday!

Today I’m getting a late start, as I had to go to the lab for a routine blood draw…and wasn’t sure I’d even have time to post anything.  But while I waited, I started reading The Obsession, by Nora Roberts, on Pippa…and kept reading it while I had breakfast afterwards.  Wow!  Now I can’t wait to read more.

 

 

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Beginning:  (August 29, 1998) (Naomi)

She didn’t know what woke her, and no matter how many times she relived that night, no matter where the nightmare chased her, she never would.

Summer turned the air into a wet, simmering stew, one smelling of sweat and drenching green.  The humming fan on her dresser stirred it, but it was like sleeping in the steam pumping off the pot.

***

56:  Shocked, she grabbed Mason’s hand.  “You never told me.”

“Some shit you don’t tell your sister.  At least when you’re eight.  He scared the crap out of me—you, too.  We just got used to being scared of him, like that was normal.”

***

Blurb:  “She stood in the deep, dark woods, breath shallow and cold prickling over her skin despite the hot, heavy air. She took a step back, then two, as the urge to run fell over her.”

Naomi Bowes lost her innocence the night she followed her father into the woods. In freeing the girl trapped in the root cellar, Naomi revealed the horrible extent of her father’s crimes and made him infamous. No matter how close she gets to happiness, she can’t outrun the sins of Thomas David Bowes.

Now a successful photographer living under the name Naomi Carson, she has found a place that calls to her, a rambling old house in need of repair, thousands of miles away from everything she’s ever known. Naomi wants to embrace the solitude, but the kindly residents of Sunrise Cove keep forcing her to open up—especially the determined Xander Keaton.

Naomi can feel her defenses failing, and knows that the connection her new life offers is something she’s always secretly craved. But the sins of her father can become an obsession, and, as she’s learned time and again, her past is never more than a nightmare away.

***

I’m glad tomorrow is the Read-a-Thon, the first I’ve participated in…because I can keep reading this all day, along with more books that are calling to me.  What do you think?  Want to read it?

***

25 thoughts on “BOOKISH FRIDAYS: “THE OBSESSION””

  9. An ER is a crappy place to be…so though I haven’t read the Nora Roberts, I’m going to distract myself for a few minutes by participating…if that’s okay… by sharing what I’m reading (or trying to).

    Opening lines: “The boy sat beside the crumbling wall and stared out to sea. It was full dark and rain hissed on the water, but he was sheltered from the downpour where he sat.”

    This book is a teen/young adult novel. It was the finalist for a prize I judged a couple years ago after being a finalist myself the year before with my manuscript (now book) Musical Youth – hope you guys will check that one out, by the way. Both books are targeted at the teen/young adult market, Caribbean and beyond. In the case of this book, Gone to Drift, the young boy’s adventure begins here at the edge of a dock in Kingston, Jamaica where he is watching for his grandfather’s return. His grandfather is a fisherman who has been too long at sea and the boy is determined to unravel the mystery of his disappearance. I’m re-reading it now that it’s been published and it remains a suspenseful story with strongly drawn empathetic characters and a vividly rendered landscape.

    Page 56: (I’ll just share a short excerpt from this page…here the boy has sought the assistance of a young female scientist who has access to the coast guard that he doesn’t…they’re waiting for the head of the coast guard, her contact who she’s hoping will assist, at the edge of another dock) “A ray jumped in front of them and she said, ‘Spotted ray. Bottom feeder. Lot of them live in the harbor.’ Lloyd thought all rays were stingrays. He wished he knew as much as she did about the sea. Did she know more than Gramps? She studied dolphins but did she love them? Would she believe Gramps’ stories about dolphins helping people?”

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