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

‘Someone Else’s Daughter’
by Jennifer Harvey
Book Beginnings
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’

With thanks to the lovely folks at Bookouture and NetGalley for introducing Jennifer Harvey, a new author to the reading community, with this, her debut novel.

I shall be taking part in the organised ‘Books On Tours’ schedule and my review will be published on June 23rd 2020.

Cover image of the book 'Someone Else's daughter' by author Jennifer Harvey

SOMEONE ELSE’S DAUGHTER‘ by JENNIFER HARVEY

BOOK BEGINNINGS / FIRST LINES

CHAPTER ONE

KATIE

“I suppose, in our hearts, we all knew she was dead. But hope kept us looking for her. Hope kept us calling out her name. All afternoon we searched for her, scouring the beach as the sun blazed over the dunes.

“Isa! Isa!”

Never a reply. Just the wash of waves on the shore and the screech of gulls as they swooped overhead watching us, while the sun traced its arc across the sky. Over and over we called her name, telling ourselves she was just asleep someplace. Sheltered and safe in the dunes, curled up on the sand and hidden from view by the high marram grass. Eventually, through the fog of sleep. she would hear her name, rub her eyes and call back to us.

“I’m here. I’m over here.”

But she never did. We found her, at dusk, caught in a hollow where the tide had ebbed. Face down in the water and buffeted by the waves, her hair tangled and matted by salt and sand, her skin violet and mottled as a bruise.

And I can’t stop thinking how strange it is that we were sat around the bonfire, drinking and singing and joking, and oblivious to it all, while she floated alone in the darkness. Perhaps she even heard us singing, as she spluttered and choked and drowned.

Isa, poor Isa.”

So, you have taken a look, 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 …

SOMEONE ELSE’S DAUGHTER by JENNIFER HARVEY

Cover image of the book 'Someone Else's daughter' by author Jennifer HarveyThey’d left their daughter with us, their only child, and we hadn’t protected her. That was all they would see when they looked at us—that we had failed them.

I count down the days until we can leave the city behind and return to the beach house. Where James and Katie can roam free over the dunes, like they did as children, and Peter will swap his 6 a.m. starts for the stacks of fluffy pancakes he lovingly serves up for our family breakfasts. These sun-drenched, golden days, just the four of us, are what I hold on to all year long.

But this summer Katie’s best friend will be coming with us. I tell myself the girls will have fun together, pushing aside the doubts I have about this uninvited guest. Isa. With her corn-silk hair and luminous skin, who manages to overshadow my daughter at every turn. Who has been dumped on us by her own parents, too caught up in their petty dramas to see what is right in front of them.

Because I can see it. There is something dangerous about Isa. Something more than a carefree girl, testing boundaries as she approaches adulthood. She threatens to cast storm clouds across my beach house days. I feel as powerless to stop her as I would in the face of a hurricane.

By the end of the summer, Isa will be dead. And I will have to face her mother. I don’t know if I will be able to find the words. How can I begin to explain that she never really knew her daughter at all?

A picture button for book beginnings at Rose City Reader

You might also like to visit 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.

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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