Things We Set on Fire - Teaser Tuesday

Some books stay with you, and that's the case with THINGS WE SET ON FIRE by Deborah Reed. From the opening chapter the author made me wonder - If Vivvie loved her husband, why would she do such a horrible thing? I even started to wonder if maybe I'd misunderstood, and she really didn't do it. But then the effects of her action, both on herself and on her two daughters, are brought to light after Vivvie receives a late-night call from the police saying, "There's been an accident, ma'am."

This is not a light, easy read, but the author drew me in and kept me turning pages.  

My Teaser is from 1% on my Kindle. I stretched the excerpt to three sentences.
     Rifles cracked off shots in the distance. Deer hunters - any one of whom could have mistaken Jackson's camouflaged coloring for a buck.
     Vivvie raised the barrel, pressed the cold scope to her eye just as Jackson spit out the call, held his fist to his mouth, and clenched his eyes as if seized by pain or prayer.

Genre:  Fiction / Family Saga
Number of Pages: 258
Amazon Link: THINGS WE SET ON FIRE

Goodreads Synopsis:

From the best-selling author of Carry Yourself Back to Me comes another tightly plotted, emotionally complex novel about strangers who happen to be part of the same family.

A series of tragedies brings Vivvie’s young grandchildren into her custody, and her two estranged daughters back under one roof. Jackson, Vivvie’s husband, was shot and killed 30 years ago, and the ramifications have splintered the family into their own isolated remembrances and recriminations.

This deeply personal, hauntingly melancholy look at the damages families inflict on each other – and the healing that only they can provide – is filled with flinty, flawed and complex people stumbling towards some kind of peace. Like Elizabeth Strout and Kazuo Isiguro, Deborah Reed understands a story and its inhabitants reveal themselves in the subtleties: the space between the thoughts, the sigh behind the smile, and the unreliable lies people tell themselves that ultimately reveal the deepest truths.

Teaser Tuesdays 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 & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's the link to join in: Teaser Tuesday