Theme Thursdays -- Animals -- The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

Theme Thursdays is a fun weekly event that will be open from one Thursday to the next. Anyone can participate in it. The rules are simple:

• A theme will be posted each week (on Thursdays)
• Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading
• Mention the author and the title of the book along with your post
• It is important that the theme is conveyed in the sentence (you don’t necessarily need to have the word).
  

This week's theme is:  animals --

Cover of The Distant Hours: A Novel

"Animals know when their end is coming, Miss Burchill.  They do not wish to be a burden.  They are not like human beings, seeking always to be comforted."  She inclined her head, indicating that I should follow her around the corner, and I felt foolish and small and resolved to offer no further words of sympathy. 

p. 456-7, The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

I've been dreadfully sick for the last 36 hours and this book kept me company.  I just finished it up and hope that by morning I'll be finished with the sickness as well!  It is a labyrinth of a tale that weaves its way through nearly a century of family history --- largely the family of Raymond Blythe, the author of The True History of the Mud Man.  Edie Burchill becomes captivated by Milderhurst Castle (the Blythe family home) after learning that her mother lived there as a child, evacuated from London during WWII.  She senses more to the story and wants to better understand her mother.  In the process, she uncovers much more that her mother was ever keeping secret.

Friday 56 -- September 24, 2010-- An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog.
*Post a link along with your post back to this blog.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

A letter came back faster than I'd expected.   It occurred to me that Simon had somehow arranged to have it sent with dispatches. The post where I was presently stationed was notoriously slow.

An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd

This is the second in Todd's Bess Crawford series.  Charles Todd is actually the mother-son team that created the Ian Rutledge series as well as authoring a stand-alone novel, The Murder Stone.  It was the first Bess Crawford novel, A Duty to the Dead, that drew me to their writing and since that time, while waiting for the second Crawford installment, I've read all the Rutledge novels that have been published so far.  Both series are set in England during or soon after WWI.   I like them a fair bit.