Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

This week my teaser comes from A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles which I received from NetGalley rather a long time ago but have only now gotten around to reading. I’m actually really sorry I put this book off as I’m absolutely loving it. I don’t tend to read much historical fiction (hence why I put it off) but this is more a character study than anything else and the Count is a fantastically complex and engaging character.

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My Teaser

“Manners are not like bonbons, Nina. You may not choose the ones that suit you best; and you certainly cannot put the half-bitten ones back in the box….”

~ 11% A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

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Blurb

From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility—a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

With his breakout debut novel, Rules of Civility, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late 1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style.

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

This week my teaser comes from Patrick Ness’s latest book Release. I started this towards the end of last week and while it feels very different from his other books I’m definitely enjoying it.

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My Teaser

His chest still burned, so much he couldn’t tell where the anger stopped and the wound began. Because there was always a wound, it seemed, kept freshly opened by a family who also kept saying they loved him.

~ Page 64 Release by Patrick Ness

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Blurb

Inspired by Mrs Dalloway and Judy Blume’s Forever, Release is one day in the life of Adam Thorn, 17. It’s a big day. Things go wrong. It’s intense, and all the while, weirdness approaches…

Adam Thorn is having what will turn out to be the most unsettling, difficult day of his life, with relationships fracturing, a harrowing incident at work, and a showdown between this gay teen and his preacher father that changes everything. It’s a day of confrontation, running, sex, love, heartbreak, and maybe, just maybe, hope. He won’t come out of it unchanged. And all the while, lurking at the edges of the story, something extraordinary and unsettling is on a collision course.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

This week my teaser comes from Spandex and the City by Jenny T Colgan. I’m really not supposed to be reading this at the moment (I should be reading my bookclub pick) but I couldn’t resist. Colgan is another of my favourite authors and this just sounds like such a quirky and fun read that I had to start it.

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My Teaser

I swore mightily to myself. I am not in the least bit brave and will not pee in a room that a spider is in or has been in or might once have been in but –

~ 8% Spandex and the City by Jenny T Colgan

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Blurb

LOCAL GIRL SWEPT OFF HER FEET

Mild-mannered PR girl Holly Phillips doesn’t think much of costumed vigilante ‘Ultimate Man’ – and after his superpowered antics leave her hoisted over his shoulder and flashing her knickers in the newspaper the next day, she’s embarrassed beyond belief.

But when Holly’s fifteen minutes of fame make her a target for something villainous, she only has one place to turn – and finds the man behind the mask holds a lot more charm than his crime-fighting alter-ego.

Can Holly find love, or is superdating just as complicated as the regular kind?

WOULD LIKE TO MEET: NICE GUY, LIKES DOGS, GSOH AND NO SUPERPOWERS

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

I’ve literally just finished a re read so I’ve been a bit undecided over which book to use for a teaser this week. As I don’t want to flick through one of my upcoming reads for fear of coming across spoilers I think I’ll go for one of my favourite reads Know Not Why by Hannah Johnson. I’m not sure what it is about this book but it just makes me happy.

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My Teaser

We go through a door with a ‘DO NOT ENTER’ sign on it.

“But it says-” Kristy starts.

“If it’s not locked, then they don’t really mean it,” Cora replies bluntly.

~ 73% Know Not Why by Hannah Johnson

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Blurb

Howie gets a job at Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N Crafts hoping to score with his lady coworkers. After all, girls love a sensitive guy, and what’s more sensitive than dedicating your life to selling yarn and … stuff? (Okay, so maybe it’d be a good idea to actually learn what one sells at an arts ‘n crafts store.) But things don’t go exactly according to plan. Coworker #1 is Cora: tiny, much-pierced, and way too fierce to screw with in any sense. Coworker #2 is Kristy: blonde, bubbly, unattainable perfection. And Coworker #3 is, well, Arthur. It goes without saying that he’s not an option. Right?

… Right?

Yeah, Howie’s life just got straight up confusing.

Pun intended.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

This week my teaser comes from And I Darken by Kiersten White which I both started and finished yesterday. It’s classed as YA fantasy but as there’s no magic this is probably a bit misleading. It’s more an alternate history of Vlad the Impaler but with Vlad changed to Lada a wild and ferocious girl. The fact that I couldn’t put this down should tell you everything about what I thought of it 😀

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My Teaser

“I think of you like a sister,” he said. “Like a brilliant, violent, occasionally terrifying sister that I would follow to the ends of the earth, in part because I respected her so much and in part because I feared what she would do to me if I refused.”

She nodded. “I would do awful things.”

~ 73% And I Darken by Kiersten White

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Blurb

No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

This week my teaser comes from Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick which I received from NetGalley. I’m around halfway through and while I’m liking the writing and it has had some very tense and gripping scenes I have to admit I’m not finding it the easiest read. I think it’s the subject matter but also I feel like it jumps around a lot rather than just telling the story.

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My Teaser

And is it better, Arturo has wondered, to be a fly who spends the whole of its short life banging against a closed window, buzzing crazy, buzzing, buzzing until its life runs out and it drops to the windowsill, slowly twitching, or to be a fly who finds an opening, a gap in the window frame, and flies out to who knows where? Who knows what?

~ 7% Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick

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Blurb

A potent, powerful and timely thriller about migrants, drug lords and gang warfare set on the US/Mexican border by prize-winning novelist, Marcus Sedgwick.

Anapra is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the Mexican city of Juarez – twenty metres outside town lies a fence – and beyond it – America – the dangerous goal of many a migrant. Faustino is one such trying to escape from the gang he’s been working for. He’s dipped into a pile of dollars he was supposed to be hiding and now he’s on the run. He and his friend, Arturo, have only 36 hours to replace the missing money, or they’re as good as dead. Watching over them is Saint Death. Saint Death (or Santissima Muerte) – she of pure bone and charcoal-black eye, she of absolute loyalty and neutral morality, holy patron to rich and poor, to prostitute and narco-lord, criminal and police-chief. A folk saint, a rebel angel, a sinister guardian.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

This week my teaser comes from More Than This by Patrick Ness. I first read this last year but it’s been picked (by me) as our next book club read (I had 10 mins to pick and had a bit of a panic) so I’m re reading. I love Ness so it’s not really a hardship and it’s well timed as he’s doing a book tour next month (which I’m ridiculously excited about).

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My Teaser

Whatever happened to you down there, whatever the world looks like now, that’s not how it always looks. That’s not how it’s always going to look. There’s more. There’s always more.

~ 63% More Than This by Patrick Ness

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Blurb

A boy drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments. He dies.

Then he wakes, naked and bruised and thirsty, but alive.

How can this be? And what is this strange deserted place?

As he struggles to understand what is happening, the boy dares to hope. Might this not be the end? Might there be more to this life, or perhaps this afterlife?

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

This week my teaser comes from Paris for One and Other Stories by Jojo Moyes which I received from NetGalley. I love Jojo Moyes so I’m really enjoying this collection from her. So far I’m only around halfway through but I absolutely adored novella Paris for One and would recommend this collection for that story alone.

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My Teaser

Nell’s mother, Lilian, was fond of telling anyone who would listen that Nell was ‘not the adventurous type’. She was also ‘not the type to travel’, ‘not the kind of girl who can rely on her looks’, and now, occasionally, if her mother thought Nell was out of earshot, ‘no spring chicken’.

~ 2% Paris for One and Other Stories by Jojo Moyes

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Blurb

From the #1 “New York Times” bestselling author of “Me Before You” and “After You,” a sensational collection featuring the title novella and eight other stories. Quintessential Jojo Moyes, “Paris for One and Other Stories” is an irresistibly romantic collection filled with humor and heart.

Nell is twenty-six and has never been to Paris. She’s never even been on a romantic weekend away to anywhere before. Everyone knows travelling abroad isn’t really her thing. But when Nell’s boyfriend fails to show up for their romantic mini-vacation, she has the opportunity to prove everyone including herself wrong. Alone and in Paris, Nell uncovers a version of herself she never knew existed: independent and intrepid. Could this turn out to be the most adventurous weekend of her life?

Funny, charming, and irresistible, “Paris for One”is vintage Moyes as are the other stories that round out the collection.”

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

This week my teaser comes from Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell which I finished late last night. I’m possibly one of the last people on the planet to read this book but in the unlikely event you also haven’t read it and like YA contemporary I’d definitely recommend. It’s quite sweet and funny with lots of 80’s references but is also really sad.

If you have read it can you please tell me what those three words are?

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My Teaser

‘She wasn’t even into you, you know. She was just bored, and she thought you were mysterious and quiet – like, “still waters run deep.” I told her that sometimes still waters just run still.’

~ page 175 Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

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Blurb

Eleanor is the new girl in town, and she’s never felt more alone. All mismatched clothes, mad red hair and chaotic home life, she couldn’t stick out more if she tried.

Then she takes the seat on the bus next to Park. Quiet, careful and – in Eleanor’s eyes – impossibly cool, Park’s worked out that flying under the radar is the best way to get by.

Slowly, steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mix tapes, Eleanor and Park fall in love. They fall in love the way you do the first time, when you’re 16, and you have nothing and everything to lose.

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, Eleanor & Park is funny, sad, shocking and true – an exquisite nostalgia trip for anyone who has never forgotten their first love.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

At long last I’ve finally started reading A Conjuring of Light by Victoria Schwab so I absolutely had to use it for my teaser this week. I love Schwab’s writing so I have been merrily highlighting my way through the whole book.

Note, this is the third book in the Shades of Magic series so while the teaser is spoiler free the blurb has spoilers for earlier books and is best avoided if you haven’t read them yet.

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My Teaser

She forgave him nothing. She owed him everything. And before she could say so, he was gone.

~ 18% A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab

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Blurb

Witness the fate of beloved heroes – and enemies.

THE BALANCE OF POWER HAS FINALLY TIPPED…
The precarious equilibrium among four Londons has reached its breaking point. Once brimming with the red vivacity of magic, darkness casts a shadow over the Maresh Empire, leaving a space for another London to rise.

WHO WILL CRUMBLE?
Kell – once assumed to be the last surviving Antari – begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. And in the wake of tragedy, can Arnes survive?

WHO WILL RISE?
Lila Bard, once a commonplace – but never common – thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible.

WHO WILL TAKE CONTROL?
And an ancient enemy returns to claim a crown while a fallen hero tries to save a world in decay.