Friday Memes: Mercy's Chase by Jess Lourey

 Happy Friday!

Book Beginnings is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader. She asks that the first sentence is posted along with the author and title of the book and the reader's initial thoughts on the sentence, the book, or anything else it inspires. 

Carrie at Reading Is My Superpower.org also provides a linky for sharing first lines and connecting with others. This meme asks that the chosen books be PG or marked as Mature if they are not. 

The Friday 56 was hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice. This meme is currently on hiatus but many of us are still including a sentence from page 56 or from 56% of the ebook. Anne @ Head Full of Books is picking up the slack until Freda is ready to return. I think this link will get you to the correct place. 

Beginning:

"She was a witch, a'course."

Salem's head snapped up so fast that loose curls tumbled over her eyes. " Excuse me?"

Friday 56:

She planned on hobbling through the house to find him, but she heard voices when she stepped inside the front door. Maybe he had come in for lunch?

This week I am spotlighting Mercy's Chase by Jess Lourey. This thriller is a recent addition to my TBR pile and the sequel to Salem's Cipher which I read recently and really enjoyed. Here's the description from Amazon:

A genius FBI code breaker unravels the mysteries of one of history’s most monumental puzzles in a propulsive thriller by Jess Lourey, the Edgar Award–nominated author of Salem’s Cipher.

Working for the FBI, cryptanalyst and agoraphobe Salem Wiley vows never to return to the conspiratorial underworld her mother revealed to her. Until fieldwork draws Salem to an Ireland farm where a curious discovery has been unearthed: a near-perfect replica of Stonehenge in miniature—except for one extra stone engraved with the word mercy.

When seven-year-old Mercy Mayfair, a child in Salem’s family’s care, is kidnapped, Salem knows it’s more than an unsettling coincidence. Mercy’s centuries-old lineage holds the key to understanding the greatest Neolithic mystery of the ages. A dangerously patriarchal society, just as ancient, will kill to solve it.

As Salem follows a serpentine trail of clues and ciphers, the clock is ticking and her fears are escalating. Because the only way to save Mercy is for Salem to crack the unbreakable code of Stonehenge first.