Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart (Book Beginnings & Friday 56)

I've been meaning to pick up Amy Stewart's Girl Waits With Gun since I first saw it mentioned on Goodreads before its release. Since I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to, well, just about everything, I devoured every bit of factual information that I could find on Constance once I learned that it was based on a true story. I added it to my TBR .... three years ago. I distract easily sometimes. It wasn't so easy, though, to distract me from this book once I finally started to read it ... yesterday. 

I had found a pristine copy of the paperback in a Little Free Library box near my house and also ended up borrowing the ebook from my public library so I would be able to continue reading in bed with the lights off, while walking to and from the store, or at work. I became completely entranced by this telling of the story of Constance Kopp and her sisters. Even though I knew ahead of time how things would more or less turn out in real life, the additions and details added by Stewart kept the pages turning -- and my internal casting director picking out who should play which part if ever made into a movie or series (Gwendoline Christie would positively rock as Constance.)

I absolutely highly recommend this book and have already made sure that my library has the next installments in the system so I can continue the saga soon. (And by "soon" I mean hopefully before three more years pass .... but I make no guarantees.)

Friday 56 (today is page 56 from the paperback) is hosted at Freda's Voice

& Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences) is at Rose City Reader.

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Title: Girl Waits With Gun

Author: Amy Stewart

Publication: Mariner Books, September 1, 2015

First Line

Our troubles began in the summer of 1914, the year I turned thirty-five.

Favorites on 4s

p14 - "My head aches terribly," she said, "from listening to Fleurette go in about how she was nearly killed yesterday. She talks too much for a girl who is almost dead."

p84 - I had the shaky, nauseated feeling that comes from being thrown so suddenly from sleep. I gathered my blankets around me as protection against whatever had hit my bed. My fingers skipped around, past the broken glass, and there it was. A brick. There was a piece of string around it, and paper tucked underneath.

p134 - As I was distracted by those thoughts, I didn't notice that an automobile had driven past and circled the block, rolling slowly by and coming to a stop just ahead of me. My whole body went cold at once when I saw it. I couldn't take a breath.

p174 - There was a sugary smell that hung around Fleurette, like the crumb tarts we used to bake when she was a little girl. I closed my eyes and the memory of it came over me. I used to tell her that she was good enough to eat, and she would shriek and run to Mother in mock horror.

p234 - "Sheriff Heath," I said, suddenly worried. "You don't look well." Why hadn'ti noticed it before?

He gave a shuddering, chesty laugh that sent him into a coughing fit.

" Strange men are firing guns at your house and you're asking after my health?"

p284 - The stories in the papers were like the old Austrian fairy  tales my mother used to whisper to us at night, populated by ogres and trolls and the weak-limbed mortals who could not fight them off.

p354 - At last sleep caught up with me again and I didn't move until the chickens started cackling at daybreak. The truth was with me, as if I had known it all along.

p384 - "I mean wasn't it the most interesting year of our lives? We learned to fire a gun and, and rode in an automobile, and you got to run around with the sheriff, and we never would have met Lucy Blake, and what about --"