Tuesday Teaser ~ First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Tuesday Intro - Rage and Ruin (The Harbinger Series Book 2)

Welcome back to First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Tuesday Intros with Socrates' Book Reviews, and Teaser Tuesday with The Purple Booker.

I'm so excited about the book I'm reading right now! It's my first approval from Edelweiss+, and I went looking for it.
See, my daughter and I were watching Pick of the Litter on Disney+, and one of the women getting a guide dog had retinitis pigmentosa, which had caused her blindness. I heard that and knew I'd heard of it before in a book. So I googled 'retinitis pigmentosa fiction character.' Sure enough, Storm and Fury (which I read and LOVED last year) has a main character with the degenerative eye disease. Total side note: The author introduces this because she also has retinitis pigmentosa.

Anyway, while researching this far, I found that the next book is being published in June 2020! Yay! So I went in search of the second Harbinger book, Rage and Ruin, and was granted an early reader copy - huge yay!! I'm enjoying this as much as I expected, and I'm here today to share with you from this fabulous book.

First Chapter, First Paragraph:

I blinked open achy, swollen eyes and stared straight at the pale, translucent face of a ghost.
Gasping, I jerked upright. Strands of dark hair fell across my face. "Peanut!" I pressed the heel of one palm against my chest, where my poor heart pounded like a steel drum. "What in the Hell, dude?"

Amazon summary:

Half-angel Trinity and her bonded gargoyle protector, Zayne, have been working with demons to stop the apocalypse while avoiding falling in love. The Harbinger is coming…but who or what is it? All of humankind may fall if Trinity and Zayne can’t win the race against time as dark forces gather.

As tensions rise, they must stay close together and patrol the DC streets at night, seeking signs of the Harbinger, an entity that is killing Wardens and demons with no seeming rhyme or reason. Forbidden to be with each other, Zayne and Trinity fight their feelings and turn to unusual sources for help—the demon Roth and his cohorts. But as deaths pile up and they uncover a sinister plot involving the local high school and endangering someone dear to Zayne, Trin realizes she is being led…herded…played for some unknown end. As anger builds and feelings spiral out of control, it becomes clear that rage may be the ruin of them all. 

Teaser Tuesday (from 17% read of my Kindle copy):

"By the way, what did you roll around in back there?" he asked
"A puddle of bad life choices."
"Huh. I always wondered what that smelled like."
"Now you know."
Despite the fact I smelled rank, another laugh tickled the back of my throat as I looked at him again. The black shirt he had on was a mess, but his leather pants held up under the constant shirting from human to Warden and back again, which must be why he wore them when he patrolled. And I was not complaining about them. 

The first book in the Harbinger series was one of my favorites from last year, and I'm really enjoying the second book now. Trinity and Zayne are thoroughly likable, and even understandable despite being non-human. I love a well-done fantasy, and this series totally hits the mark.

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Tuesday Intro - Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

Today I'm joining in with the First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intro meme hosted at Socrates Book Reviews AND Teaser Tuesday hosted by The Purple Booker.  The timing for these is perfect! I'm just starting a new book, with a couple days left before my review is due. Wish me luck!

I am just starting to read Afterlife by Julia Alvarez. 

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Tuesday Intro:

Prologue - Broken English

She is to meet him / a place they often choose for special occasions / to celebrate her retirement from the college / a favorite restaurant / and the new life awaiting her / a half-hour drive from their home / a mountain town / twenty if she speeds in the thirty-mile zone

Teaser Tuesday rules: 

1: Grab your current read
2: Open to a random page
3: Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! Everyone loves Teaser Tuesday.

Antonia takes the folded blanket and covers the girl, who startles awake but, on hearing the soothing Ya, ya, duérmete, duérmete, instantly falls back to sleep.
When Mona was recounting how Realtor Nancy tucked in Izzy, Antonia had felt uneasy, as if her sister were being fattened up, not for the kill, but for the sell, an abandoned motel and a farm in the middle of nowhere.

Have you read this one yet? It officially publishes today! I'll be sharing my review by next week. 

First Chapter~First Paragraph~Tuesday Intros - Day Zero

I'm  joining I'd Rather Be at the Beach for First Chapter~First Paragraph~Tuesday Intros today. Check it out and join in the fun!

The premise doesn't get any simpler. I'll share the first paragraph (okay, a little more than that from this one) of the book I started reading a couple days ago - Day Zero by Kelly deVos. This released last week, and is the first book of two about a high-school aged girl. Enjoy!

TONIGHT

I will save the world.

It's taken months to build the perfect guild, get everyone to level ninety-nine, mine ore, forge the best armor and train for the mission. Now I've got a foolproof plan to kill the dragon, charge the Cataline Hills and save the Elysian Fields. I'm ready for the raid. Tonight.

Well. Almost.

I get out my phone as I enter the empty history classroom. Dropping my backpack on the floor near my usual desk, I notice that there's one item on my list that doesn't have a checkmark.

Snacks.

First Chapter~First Paragraph~Tuesday Intros - Mama Hissa's Mice

First Chapter~First Paragraph~Tuesday Intros

Hosted by I'd Rather Be at the Beach. Given that today is a snow day from school with more than 10 inches of snow that fell yesterday, I'd rather be at the beach too! Instead I'm at home, with the kids and neighbors coming and going. Lots of fun, and I'm happy to see them all enjoying it.

I'm working on reading Mama Hissa's Mice by Saud Alsanounsi (currently free with Kindle unlimited) today. There were some changes made after I received my ARC, so they sent me a PDF. And a PDF doesn't adjust size on my kindle. So I'm sitting at my kitchen table reading on my laptop. I think I'm about a quarter of the way done so far. It is well written, but I wish I knew more of the background. The book was actually banned in Kuwait for four years. Here's the first paragraph of the book (I skipped over posting the Prologue, which also would have worked....).
                                                   

Noon

Present Day

I regain consciousness. Sun rays, directly above me, morph into a red infinity behind my shut eyelids. Liquid oozes from where my tousled hair is parted into a pool at the back of my head. I slowly open my eyes, only to tightly close them again to block out the piercing sun. Gravel jabs my back. My throat and lips are bone-dry, and there is a taste of dirt in my mouth. Something returns me to a final scene, a moment suspended between dream and reality. Pain throbs above my left eyebrow. I dab at the pool beneath my head with my fingertips. “Blood?” I bring my palm to my face, casting a shadow against the sun. Carefully, I open my eyes to inspect the color of the liquid on my fingertips, hoping that it’s something other than red. I sigh with relief. “Sweat.” I shut my eyes again. 

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intro: Katy's Ghost by Trish Evans

First of all, loving the graphic from First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros (obviously from I'd Rather Be at the Beach, which is what that picture makes me dream of).


This is, like, the most straight-forward meme ever. The first paragraph or two from the first chapter of a book I'm reading or plan to read soon. Katy's Ghost by Trish Evans is actually the tenth book I'm reading this month (go, me!). I believe it published last week, so I'm trying to wrap it up and get the review out in the next couple of days.

Chapter One

I was sitting alone at our dining room table when Gram appeared. Maybe I should have been startled as I looked up and saw her sitting in the chair across from me, but I wasn't. It was as if she'd been there all morning, just visiting. Nothing unusual about that. Unless, of course, you considered the fact that Gram had been dead for eleven years, almost to the day.