Teaser Tuesday (3): A Respectable Trade

From A Respectable Trade by Philippa Gregory, page 127:

"'I do hate niggers,' Honoria said quietly to Frances as the men talked across the table. 'I wonder how you can bear to teach them. I won't have them near me.'"

 From A Respectable Trade by Philippa Gregory, page 151:

"'I could just beat them, ma'am.' John offered. 'That's what we always did in Jamaica. Beat them till they were quiet.'"

There are so many great lines in this book, but none of them in isolation will really give you a feel for this novel. While I'd been looking forward to reading it, I didn't expect the overwhelming sense of sadness that reading this book gives me. I've watched movies about the slave trade and have been touched, but there is nothing to compare with the ability to use your own sense of indignation and imagination to pull together from the pages of a book. I weep nearly constantly reading this one and it's exhausting, but very much worth it.

I'd like to take this opportunity to let you know that I'm going to be going out of town from tomorrow until, I imagine, next Tuesday. I may be able to make posts, but it's unlikely that I will have time to do a lot of commenting during this upcoming week. Please don't be offended if I'm not around much, or miss me. I'll be back!

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!