First Chapter ~ First Paragraph (December 4)

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Vicky from I’d Rather Be At The Beach who posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

Today I have chosen a new to me author to feature in this meme. The synopsis to Elisabeth Carpenter’s new novel Only a Mother was intriguing as it targets an area of crime I found fascinating; how is it that some relatives, lovers or friends, maintain that a convicted person is innocent when faced with majority opinion and conviction that suggests the opposite is true?

Blurb

ONLY A MOTHER . . .
Erica Wright hasn’t needed to scrub ‘MURDERER’ off her house in over a year. Life is almost quiet again. Then her son, Craig, is released from prison, and she knows the quiet is going to be broken.

COULD BELIEVE HIM
Erica has always believed Craig was innocent – despite the lies she told for him years ago – but when he arrives home, she notices the changes in him. She doesn’t recognise her son anymore.

COULD LIE FOR HIM
So, when another girl goes missing, she starts to question everything. But how can a mother turn her back on her son? And, if she won’t, then how far will she go to protect him?

COULD BURY THE TRUTH
NetGalley

Only a Mother will be published on 27 December 2018.

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First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Intro

1 Erica

I step outside and close my front door. Out of habit, I examine it quickly from top to bottom. My shoulders relax. The green paint is covered in tiny cracks, but there’s no writing sprayed on it today, no excrement wiped across or pushed into the keyhole. The door’s been free of graffiti for nearly eighteen months, but it won’t stay that way for long.

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Well there is quite a bucketful of resignation in that short paragraph isn’t there? I’m looking forward to seeing how this psychological thriller unfolds – we don’t often see mother’s in this context in crime fiction with a few notable exceptions. I can’t wait to see what this has in store.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?