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Sharing our love for authors, and the stories they are inspired to tell.

The Street Party
by Claire Seeber
First Lines

image of a woman sat reading by an open window - caption reads 'will these first few lines capture our imagination' - used as the image for Book Beginnings / First Lines, posts

This is a meme for all you ‘First Page Browsers‘

Cover image of the book 'The Street Party' by author Claire Seeber

THE STREET PARTY by CLAIRE SEEBER

BOOK BEGINNINGS / FIRST LINES

PROLOGUE

RUBYSUNDAY 1 OCTOBER

“Afterwards. I kept thinking, if only I hadn’t fallen asleep when I’d got home, things would have been completely different. If I hadn’t been so daft, so tired, so naive. He would have been OK. It was always afterwards when things made more sense, by which time it was also always too late. I should never, ever have left him alone at the Jacksons. But they’d all worked so hard to persuade me that he was safe.

The minute my eyes had snapped open, lying on my sofa, head in a muddle, I knew there was something different, something about the quality of the stillness in the flat. In the darkness, I scrabbled on the floor until my fingers closed round the phone. The call went straight to voicemail.

I hauled myself up and searched for the Snapchat app I’d insisted Ali install when she was pulling her disappearing tricks a while back.

‘Got twenty thousand snaps,’ she’d boasted to her brother, pouting at the camera.

He’d make a face at me over his cornflakes, and I’d wink back, relieved that, however hard Ali pushed at the boundary, I still had my little boy. But now he was also counting snaps every day, pushing back.

I pulled up the Snapchat map. Fiendishly bright in the shadows of my living room, West London blinked at me. And I blinked back: my tousle-haired, grey-eyed avatar, grinning like a lunatic. I scrolled over – ah! And there, phew! There was my smiling cartoon son: hovering over – Northgate Square: Nella’s house. I exhaled unsteadily.

Where he was meant to be”

Cover image of the book 'The Street Party' by author Claire Seeber

So, you have taken a sneak peek, would you read the book?

Let me know what you think in the comments section below.

Just to give you an extra helping hand, here is the book’s premise …

Image of author Claire Seeber

THE STREET PARTY

Cover image of the book 'The Street Party' by author Claire SeeberThe party was supposed to be the highlight of the summer. If only I’d known that night would destroy our lives…

All the neighbours were laughing, drinking out of plastic glasses and getting along. I almost felt happy. Almost forgot about the terrible argument earlier and the sinister messages I’d been receiving from a strange address all week, threatening to expose the lies behind my perfect life.

As we finished with the red and gold fireworks and welcomed everyone back to our house, I believed that everything would be okay.

But I didn’t know who I was inviting in.

I never could have imagined what would happen here, in our home, after I’d gone up to bed.

Everyone saw something different.

It’s my daughter’s word against the story the boy from down the road is telling. But how can I find out what really happened that night without everyone finding out the truth about me?

A picture button for book beginnings at Rose City Reader

You might also like to visit the meme host, Gilion, over at ‘Rose City Reader‘, where you can share links to the book beginnings from her own reading schedule and that of many of our fellow bloggers.

There are always plenty of new authors and titles to be discovered and you never know where that next ‘must read’ is going to come from!

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Written by
Yvonne

I can’t remember a time, even as a child, when I haven’t been passionate about books and reading.
I began blogging, when I realised just how many other people out there shared my passion for the written word and I have been continually amazed at the wealth of books that are available and the amount of great new friends I have made, from literally 'The Four Corners Of The World'.

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Written by Yvonne