Sunday, September 12, 2010

Current Read

Today I’m reading Maybe This Time, by Jennifer Crusie. I’m already a Crusie fan, so I expect to enjoy this. I’m in a mood to feel good, so I put aside two other books to read this one. Ms. Crusie’s characters always appeal to me. They’re people I’d like to know and be friends with. Andie, the protagonist in Maybe This Time, is going to be another one—besides, she bakes banana bread. I wish she lived next door. Maybe she’d share.

Crusie thanks Henry James and Truman Capote, who were there before her, for the basis of the story, a strange housekeeper and two weird children living in a creepy old house and driving off nannies.

To use the teaser idea from MizB, which I got from V R Barkowski, here are a couple of lines. I left out a bit of the first paragraph.

“I did some research for a friend of mine. She’s interested in hauntings . . .”
“She,” North said, Sullivan’s motives becoming much clearer now. The combination of a shiny new hobby and a shiny new girlfriend must have been irresistible.

The writing is fluid, fast, and charming. The quirky characters are fun. I’m about half way, wishing for banana bread and laughing a lot.

1 comment:

VR Barkowski said...

Thanks for the mention, Ellis. I haven't had the pleasure of reading Crusie (too many books, too little time), but this one sounds irresistible. I love ghost stories and the crisp voice is evident. These teasers are absolute murder on my tbr pile.