Teaser Tuesday/First Chapter First Paragraph - The Adventuress

This post contains affiliate links. 

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn at Books and Beat. To play along, just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers!
• Share the title and author, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers! 

As I returned to standing, two wretched sounds accosted me: the creak of metal scraping against metal and the thud of a solid mass of wood. I could not move, knowing all too well what I would find when I turned around to face the door. It would be closed.

~The Adventuress: A Lady Emily Mystery by Tasha Alexander, page 116

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intros is a weekly link-up hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea. To participate, share the first paragraph (or two) of a book you're reading, or thinking about reading soon.

"The English duke is dead."

   The words, muffled and heavily accented, hardly reached me through the voluminous duvet that, while I slept, had somehow twisted around me with such violence that it now more closely resembled mummy wrappings than a blanket. Struggling against its bonds, I managed to extricate one hand before realizing my head was under a stack a pillows. I flung them aside and sat up, turning to discover my husband was no longer next to me. The words came again, and the this time vanquished in an instant all of the confusion clouding my mind after being awoken from a deep slumber.

   "Monsieur, the duke, the English duke, he is dead."

   "Jeremy?" I leapt from the bed, dragging the duvet with me (I had not been quite so successful in the removal of it from my person as I had hoped), and started for the narrow patch of light coming into our room from the door, held open by my husband, his dressing gown pulled around him. A chasm seemed to open inside me, as if my heart were splitting and filling me simultaneously with intolerable cold and heat. Jeremy Sheffield, Duke of Bainbridge, my dearest childhood friend, who had tormented me in my youth not quite so much as I had tormented him, could not be dead. I tried to step forward, but my limbs would obey no commands.

The Adventuress: A Lady Emily Mystery by Tasha Alexander

Here's the blurb:

Lady Emily and her dashing husband, Colin, have come to the French Riviera for what should be a joyous occasion -- the engagement party of her lifelong friend Jeremy, Duke of Bainbridge, and Amity Wells, an American heiress. Amity is the picture of perfection, a distinction that endears her all too quickly to the gentlemen of British society but earns her something closer to disdain -- even jealousy -- from the fairer sex. And though Amity's parents' wealth affords them entree into society, their determinedly crass behavior and unrestrained flair for exorbitant parties is grating.

Still, Emily can't complain about a trip to such a beautiful locale, with the Cote d'Azur right outside the windows of the lavish hotel where the wedding party convenes. But the merrymaking is cut short with the shocking death of one of the party in an apparent suicide. Not convinced by the coroner's verdict, Emily must employ all of her investigative skills to discover the truth and avert another tragedy.

What do you think? Would you continue reading?

©2008-2016 Just A Second. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://justasecondblog.blogspot.com/