First Lines Friday – 25/10/2019
It’s Friday once again friends, so today I am sharing another First Lines Friday post! This post gives you the opportunity to sample something new without the bias of a front cover? Which book am I featuring today? Here are the first few lines from today’s featured book: –
When the steamboat Moselle blew apart just off the Cincinnati landing, I was sitting below deck in the ladies’ cabin, sewing tea leaves into little muslin bags and plotting revenge on my cousin Comfort for laughing at me during dinner.
I had many ways of getting back at her. Sometimes I put a few darts in her cuffs so that when her wrists swelled, which they always did when she was performing, she would have to cut the cloth later to get her arms out. Or I snipped her lace ties just a little, which kept her from pulling her corset as tightly as she liked; or I sewed a small pigeon feather into the back of one of her costumes so that when she walked across the stage the shaft scratched at her skin.
I was Comfort’s seamstress, dresser and trunk packer. And a hundred other things as well. She was the Famous Comfort Vertue. That was her stage name.
I found this book on Bookbub and purchased my copy in July 2017, having been blown away by the synopsis and in particular, the topic that it covers throughout. I also really enjoy historical fiction, so this was pretty much a no-brainer purchase for me!
Shall we find out what it is?
The Floating Theatre – Martha Conway
In a nation divided by prejudice, everyone must take a side.
When young seamstress May Bedloe is left alone and penniless on the shore of the Ohio, she finds work on the famous floating theatre that plies its trade along the river. Her creativity and needlework skills quickly become invaluable and she settles in to life among the colourful troupe of actors. She finds friends, and possibly the promise of more …
But cruising the border between the Confederate South and the ‘free’ North is fraught with danger.
For the sake of a debt that must be repaid, May is compelled to transport secret passengers, under cover of darkness, across the river and on, along the underground railroad.
But as May’s secrets become harder to keep, she learns she must endanger those now dear to her.
And to save the lives of others, she must risk her own …
A gloriously involving and powerful read for fans of Gone With The Wind and Tracy Chevalier’s The Last Runaway.
So, what do you think? Will you add this to the TBR? Is it on already?
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