The First 100 Pages of Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart.

Reading the first 100 pages of this novel makes me think that maybe I need to reevaluate the 100 page policy. Or maybe this book just takes a while to get started. That could prove problematic as it's only 264 pages long...

Rose Cottage is a suspense romance by Mary Stewart, who also wrote The Crystal Cave. It takes place in England shortly after WW II. We are introduced to Kathy Herrick, Née Welland. She comes from a small village in the English countryside, the illegitimate granddaughter of the gardner and cook of the local big house. She is returning to her childhood home, Todhall to retrieve some papers for her grandmother who is moving to Scotland.
On the day of her arrival she runs into an old friend, Davey Pasco, who agrees to assist her in opening her Grandmothers safe. Back at the house, she discovers that someone has been in the cottage and removed the contents of the safe. The next day she goes into the village and begins to ask questions about any goings on at Rose Cottage.

And that's the first 100 pages.

I don't know if I will finish this novel. It didn't really grasp my attention, and I don't really feel motivated to discover who would have gone into her grandmother's house to get the things out of her safe.

So, for now, I will set Rose Cottage down and move on to the next novel.

It takes 100 pages...

to become involved in a book.

That's what my librarian mother has always told me and I find it to be mostly true. In 100 pages I think the plot should be sufficiently built up so that you, the reader, know whether or not you will continue with the book.

I was thinking about this philosophy as I looked at my "unread" bookshelf. Yes, there is an entire bookshelf dedicated to books I own and have not read. I'm sure I have at least 120 books that I really do want to read, but haven't got 'round to it.

So I'd like to start a little series here called 100 pages. I will pick a book from my TBR bookshelf and read the first 100 pages. Once that is done I will give a brief summary here saying what the book is about and my findings in the first 100 pages, then move on to the next book. I hope that by doing this I'll be able to power through the books that I ultimately won't interest me, and the ones that do I'll know to get back to, or just continue on reading, whichever.

See you soon with my first First 100 page book!