Book Beginnings & Friday 56: The Butterfly Cabinet by Bernie McGill

This one was just released by FreePress and I'll be highlighting my review of this new novel by Irish writer Bernie McGill on August 9 for its big blog tour, but since it's sitting here tempting me, I'll tempt you too with these teasers...

Book Beginning:

   Anna.  You're the spit of your mother standing there - Florence, God rest her - and you have the light of her sharp wit in your eyes.  Give me your hand till I see you better.  There's not much change on you, apart from what we both know.  Ah, you needn't look at me like that.  Sure, why else would you be here?  I know by the face of you there's a baby on the way, even if you're not showing.  It's an odd thing, isn't it, the way the past has no interest for the young till it comes galloping up on the back of the future.  And then they can't get enough of it, peering after it, asking it where it's been.  I suppose that's always been the way.  I suppose we're one of us interested in the stories of our people till we have children of our own to tell them to.

Mesmerizing voice, no?  With such subtly different turns of phrase from my own stock here in the U.S.  I think I'll go sit down and start reading this just as soon as I complete this post!

And, let's see, what's on page 56...

Alphie's parents were known throughout the parish for their bickering, but they had survived together for fifty-two years, when famously, old man McGlinchy fell into the harbor full of drink and never came out of it.  The McGlinchys could agree about nothing.  They were like two magnets, wanting to be together and pushing each other away.  Peig finally agreed to marry the man we all knew as Alphie, and on their wedding day, when his birth certificate was produced, found she was to be Mrs. Alphabet McGlinchy.  It turned out that his mother and father couldn't even agree on a name for their son and had settled on the one word that covered every letter.  "Alphabet" was all the men would call him after that.  I suppose that should have been a warning sing.  No one should marry a man they believe to be named one thing and discover to be named something entirely different.

So then, come visit me on the blog tour on Tuesday to find out whether or not this tempting new novel turns out to be as fine as it feels at just a glance...

Now go visit the folks at Book Beginnings for more tantalizing openers and at Freda's Voice for the Friday 56!

MFB,
L

p.s.  Poem In Your Post Blog Hop is hosted here on weekends.  Drop by tomorrow and Sunday to sample a wonderful poem and to link up to your own favorites, whether authored by you or by a poet you admire...