Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye. This week, all three samples are ones I’ve had for eons.
Marlena by Julie Buntin
Summary: Everything about 15yo Cat’s new town is lonely and off-kilter, until she meets the manic, beautiful Marlena. Within the year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby. Decades later, when a ghost from that pivotal year surfaces unexpectedly, Cat must try to forgive herself.
I’m thinking: Maybe.
The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken
Summary: 1950, and in a small town on Cape Cod 26yo librarian Peggy Cort feels like love and life have stood her up. Until the day James Carlson Sweatt – the ‘over tall’ 11yo boy who’s the talk of the town – walks into her library. Two misfits whose lonely paths cross, they’re odd candidates for friendship.
I’m thinking: No.
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
Summary: On a foggy night, 11 people – ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter – depart Martha’s Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Minutes later the plane plunges into the ocean – the painter and a 4yo boy who is now the last remaining member of a powerful media mogul’s family survive.. Was it merely by chance that so many influential people perished? Or something sinister?
I’m thinking: No.
I read The Giant’s House ages ago – I think in the in the 90s – and I remember enjoying it, but maybe I’d feel differently now. I do enjoy Elizabeth McCracken’s writing, I’d like to catch up with her as I’ve lost track completely,
Elizabeth McCracken is a delightfully quirky author. All I’ve read of McCracken is Souvenir Museum, but I hope to one day read more.
Wow, this is a first: I’ve read all of your options! Marlena is fantastic. I am a big fan of Elizabeth McCracken’s memoirs and short stories, but not so much her novels. Before the Fall was a fun enough thriller, but not necessary.
Loved The Giant’s House. It’s odd and quirky and I couldn’t stop reading it.
I read The Giant’s House years ago but remember loving it. I’ve read one book by Hawley, I can’t even remember what it was called, but it was not good.