Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- Be careful not to include spoilers! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title and author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!
My teaser
(Sphere UK hardcover, 2008, page 36):
“Ida saw sadness in his eyes and, despite her discomfort and unease, it awoke her compassion. His words lit a small flicker of warmth inside her too to think she had given him something others could not.'”
In the USA, The Time Of Singing has been re-titled For The King's Favor. Elizabeth Chadwick explains the reasoning behind this change in a recent blog post.
The last of Chadwick's books that I read was The Falcons Of Montabard, which opened in the manner of a cracking adventure but unexpectedly fell a little flat for me once the action moved to Outremer. I have only reached chapter four of The Time Of Singing, but Chadwick's knack for creating a mediaeval atmosphere is in full evidence and the pages bristle with the tension of painful family dynamics.
This time the principal protagonists are based on real historical figures: Roger Bigod, the twelfth-century dispossessed heir to the earldom of Norfolk, and Ida de Tosny, reluctant mistress of King Henry II. I am generally hesitant about fictionalised biographies, preferring clean-cut factual accounts that note all the sources used, but since this has become Chadwick's chosen genre I am crossing my fingers and hoping for good things. I confess I am curious to discover whether the shift will affect how I relate to her storytelling.
Please feel free to share the link to your own Tuesday teaser!
