Book Beginning & Friday 56: The Other Guy's Bride by Connie Brockway

Happy Friday everybody!!

Book Beginnings

Book Beginnings on Friday is now hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages.  

Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading. 

If you like, share with everyone why you do, or do not, like the sentence.

The Friday 56

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 Freda's Voice
• Post a link along with your post back to Freda's Voice

Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Closest to my hand today is The Other Guy's Bride by Connie Brockway. This is a review book and a historical romance. It apparently tells the story of two side characters from earlier Brockway novels. I think this is my first book by Connie Brockway so I don't know what she said about these people before.

Here is the product description:

Determined to prove her worth as a budding archeologist, Ginesse Braxton vows to solve one of the world's greatest mysteries--to find the location of the lost city of Zerzura. Unfortunately, no man dares take the risk of escorting the resolute young scholar across the open desert. But on her way to Egypt, Ginesse engages in a daring deception--she will switch places with Mildred Whimpelhall, who is traveling to meet her fiancé.

Cynical adventurer Jim Owen will do anything to escape the dark secrets of his troubled past. Betrayed by the woman he loved, scorned by proper society, he agrees to carry out a danger-fraught task: escort Mildred Whimpelhall across a lawless desert to her intended. But Jim is about to learn that "Mildred" isn't exactly what she seems . . . and the dangers they face together are eclipsed only by an even greater peril: falling in love, against all reason, with another guy's bride . . .

This is the first book in Amazon's new Montlake imprint. The ebook is available now; the print book will be published on Dec. 22.

Beginning:

"Join the Foreign Legion," the dirt and blood-stained young man muttered, jamming a cartridge into his rifle's magazine. "If you die, that'll make her sorry, by God." He dug another cartridge out from the bottom of his kit, ramming it alongside its fellow. "Only one problem: you'll be dead a lot longer than she'll be sorry, jackass."

Friday 56:

He'd reached across the transom, grabbed a fistful of the captain's galabeeyah, and dragged him forward until the man hung face to face before him.