Hosted @ Socrates’ Book Reviews

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb

Prologue

I could tell this girl she’d marry the love of her life in a year. She’d leave the tenement in Brooklyn and see Cairo and Tuscany and China and Switzerland and Greese and Gaza and Paris- Paris more times than she could count. She’d visit her mother’s village in Belarus (the part of Russia), the village her mother fled when she was thirteen years old, and that night she’d order a Kir Royale at the hotel bar. She’d have two worshipful sons and one daughter.

Killer Cruise: A Humorous Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery by A.R. Winters
(Cruise Ship Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

Chapter 1
It was with pride and barely concealed excitement that I walked down one of the below-deck hallways of the Swan Of The Seas after collecting the tools of my new trade: a smartphone and a notebook computer and a notebook computer.

Tucked under my arm were the two ugly blue bloused I’d been issued that make up the entirety of my uniform. Because of my unique role, which would see me scurrying back and forth across the entire ship, I was exempt from wearing dress pant or a skirt and was permitted to wear jeans.

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

Chapter One

A Door Opens

Melvin Butler, the personnel officer at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, had a problem, the scope and nature of which was made plain in a May 1943 telegram to the civil service’s chief of field operations. “This establishment has urgent need for approximately 100 Junior Physicists and Mathematicians, 100 Assistant Computers, 75 Minor Laboratory Apprentices, 125 Helper Trainees, 50 Stenographers and Typists,” exclaimed the missive. Every morning at 7:00 a.m., the bow-tied Butler and his staff sprang to life, dispatching the lab’s station wagon to the local rail depot, the bus station, and the ferry terminal to collect the men and woman-so many women now, each day more women-who had made their way to the lonely finger of land on the Virginia coast. The shuttle conveyed the recruits to the door of the laboratory’s service building on the campus of Langley Field. Upstairs, Butler’s staff whisked them through the first-day stations: forms, photos, and the oath of office: I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…so help me God.

Forever and Ever, Amen:
A Memoir of Music, Faith, and Braving the Storms of Life by Randy Travis

1: Pull The Plug

It was a sound I had become much too familiar with- the constant whirr of the machine that was keeping my collapsed lungs breathing, the incessant beep, beep, beep sound of the heart monitor. This was the soundtrack to the constant swirl of pensive doctors and nurses flitting in and out of my hospital room, poking one of my arms and then the other, taking more blood, running another test.

You should always be careful what you say in a hospital room when a patient is unconscious or in a come. Don’t ever utter a negative statement about his or her condition because the person in the coma might well be able to hear you.

I know this is true. Because when I was in that state someone said the unthinkable.

“He’s not going to make it.”
“Maybe it’s time to discontinue life support.”
“He can’t survive this.”
“It’s time to pull the plug.”

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

It was late in both day and season for planting, but she had no choice in the matter. Her husband hadn’t understood the urgency, having never nurtured a garden. Nor did he hold an appreciation for its bounty, and as a result had been gently irritable with her that morning. Wishing she would focus on more important tasks instead, of which there were many, as they’d moved in only the week before. It was true much of the garden could wait – little happened during these later months, as bulbs rested dormant, waiting for the rain and warmth of spring. But this particular plant, with it’s bell-shaped flowers plentiful, would not be so patient. Besides, it was a gift and came with specific instructions, so there was no alternative but to get it in the ground. Today.

Bite Me: Tell-All Tales of an Emergency Veterinarian by Laura Lefkowitz DVM

Chapter 1
Night Of Traumas

Summer is the busy season in the veterinary ER business. Dogs and cats are fighting, animals bolting in front of cars, and garbage cans are being knocked over, their contents scavenged. Grass awns are finding their way into our animals’ eyes and ears. Owners are camping with their dogs who are drinking stagnant water, eating poisonous mushrooms, and riding loose in truck beds. Hunting dogs are nosing up to venomous snakes, or cornering sharp-toothed animals, or overheating in the excitement of the chase. Disease-carrying ticks, mosquitoes, and fleas are biting through the protective fur of animals’ coats. Unvaccinated puppies are sniffing virus-laden feces in the park. Cats are scrapping over their territories and arriving at out hospital with nasty wounds on their bodies. Every summer the veterinary business booms.

The Family Journal by Carolyn Brown

Chapter One
When you come to the end of the rope, it’s time to tie a knot and hang on. Lily Anderson had reached the place where there wasn’t even enough rope left to tie a knot. She’d thought about her problem for a whole day, made a few phone calls, and now her mind was made up. She was moving her kids out of the city of Austin and to her hometown of Comfort, Texas – population a little more than three thousand.

Would you keep reading?

Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero by Christopher McDougall

1

I knew something was wrong the second the pickup truck pulled into our driveway. I’d been waiting for Wes for more than an hour, and now, before he even came to a stop, the look in his eyes warned me to brace myself.

“He’s in rough shape,” Wes said as he got out of the truck. “Rougher than I thought.” I’ve know Wes for more than ten years, nearly from the day my wife and I first uprooted ourselves from Philadelphia to live on this small farm in Pennsylvania Amish country, and I’d never seen him so grim before. Together, we walked behind the pickup and pulled open the trailer doors.

I took a look inside, then immediately grabbed in my pocket for my phone. Luckily, I had the number I needed. “Scott, you’ve got to get over here. This is really bad.”