TUESDAY POTPOURRI: INTROS/TEASERS – “THE POCKET WIFE”

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

I am delighted to shine the spotlight today on an ARC I received this past week:  The Pocket Wife, by Susan Crawford.

 

 

 

Intro:  The ambulance is still miles away when Dana awakens to the near dark of evening.  It wails ribbon-thin in the smog over the highway as she opens her eyes where she lies sprawled across her couch in a suburb of Paterson, a stone’s throw from Manhattan but a different world entirely.  She wakes to a headache throbbing at the backs of her lids, a library book lying beside her.  She sits up and reaches for the book, marking her place with a tiny corner fold, giving it a little pat as she sets it on the coffee table.

Lately she can read a novel in two hours.  She has always been an avid reader, but these days she can read much faster.  The colors, the conversations, everything is much more vibrant and inclusive, as if opening a book releases genies trapped inside.  The scenes and people between their covers sometimes seem more vivid than real life, with their sunny pearl-toothed characters, the witty conversation, the handsome stranger squeezed into a subway car or knocking about on the street.  Sometimes, when she finishes a book at record speed, Dana feels a slight letdown, as if a good friend has hung up the phone in the middle of a conversation.

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Teaser:  It’s not entirely unpleasant, this restlessness, this energy, the sharpness of her thoughts, her swift responses, intuitive, clever.  The clarity will in time give way to chaos.  (p. 18).

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Amazon Description:  A stylish psychological thriller with the compelling intrigue of The Silent Wife and Turn of Mind and the white-knuckle pacing of Before I Go to Sleep—in which a woman suffering from bipolar disorder cannot remember if she murdered her friend.

Dana Catrell is shocked when her neighbor Celia is brutally murdered. To Dana’s horror, she was the last person to see Celia alive. Suffering from mania, the result of her bipolar disorder, she has troubling holes in her memory, including what happened on the afternoon of Celia’s death.

Her husband’s odd behavior and the probing of Detective Jack Moss create further complications as she searches for answers. The closer she comes to piecing together the shards of her broken memory, the more Dana falls apart. Is there a murderer lurking inside her . . . or is there one out there in the shadows of reality, waiting to strike again?

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I am very excited about this one, hoping to dive right into it next week.  What do you think?  Does it grab you?  Do you want to keep reading?

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