The Friday 56 (With Book Beginnings): Heartless by Marissa Meyer + 50/50 Friday

Welcome to The Friday 56, a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice.

These are the rules:

1. Grab a book, any book.

2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.
4. Post it.
5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post.

I'm also taking part in Book Beginnings, a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader.  The rules are pretty simple - you share the first sentence or so and your initial thoughts, impressions, or whatever else it inspires.  Don't forget to link up your post's url with Rose City Reader.

This week I'm featuring one of my current reads, Heartless by Marissa Meyer, which is my second book for Summer 2017 Bookish Bingo - it will fulfill the Royalty square.  I'm really looking forward to trying out something new by Marissa Meyer since The Lunar Chronicles is an all-time favorite series.  To help me decide what to read next to complete this column, which I'm hoping will be my first bingo, I actually had a poll on Twitter - so thanks to the voters for deciding for me!  I've got extremely high hopes for this one!

Beginning:

Three luscious lemon tarts glistened up at Catherine.  She reached her towel-wrapped hands into the oven, ignoring the heat that enveloped her arms and pressed against her cheeks, and lifted the tray from the hearth.  The tarts' sunshine filling quivered, as if glad to be freed from the stone chamber.

56:

"It was... I thought I saw... nothing."

"I see nothing all the time."

"As I said before, it was very warm inside, that's all.  And I've barely eaten all day."

"No doubt the corset of tortures didn't help.:

Her scowl deepened.  "A lady's undergarments re not a suitable topic of conversation."

He raised his hands in surrender.  "Only a theory, my lady."

This week I'm also taking part in a linkup called 50/50 Friday, which is hosted by Carrie @ The Butterfly Reader and Laura @ Blue Eye Books.  Every week they'll have a new topic featuring two sides of the same coin - this week the topic is Favorite/ Least Favorite Format of a Book.

Favorite: Hardcover - Beautiful, durable, and great to add to your collection - if only they weren't so expensive.

Least Favorite: Audiobook on CD - Don't get me wrong, I love listening to audiobooks, but this particular type is the least convenient.  I definitely prefer the mp3 download format or the Playaway.