First Paragraph, Tuesday Teaser Plus a Book Giveaway

Giveaway
I'm thrilled to offer a book giveaway this week too. Mike Dixon, author of Wolf Wood, has generously

offered to send out a hard copy to either a North American or UK reader, along with an ecopy. Dixon's book is set in Medieval England and France. It includes a great attention to detail and some intriguing characters that you'll cheer for while rooting against those Medieval bad guys. See my full review here.
Leave a comment and make sure I know how to reach you if you want to be registered. I'll draw a winner next Wednesday, Nov. 6.

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading
This is one of those weeks that I wish I had more time to spend curled up in a chair on the front porch with a book.
I have more time, since three of my classes finished, but a new one is starting and I have a list of things to do that I've put off.
But here's a book that I have snuck a bit of so far. Someone online recommended it to me, but I can't remember where or when.
The House of the Wind by Titania Hardie is about a woman who is heartbroken after her fiance dies, so her grandfather sned her to Tuscany to heal. Who couldn't heal in Tuscany? The story is interwoven with one from 1347 in the same area of Tuscany.
Here's the intro from the first chapter:

In the calendar of seasons and times, January is Janus-headed: the patron month of gateways and doors, of looking forward and backward. Back over what has been, what brings us to this point; ahead to what may be, anticipating the dreams of future days.
Perhaps today, laughing and circling the date on her calendar with a bright pen, Madeline Moretti had given some thought to this, at least unconsciously. She'd certainly been revising in her mind Christopher's favorite foods -- his preference for salads and seafood, his enjoyment of full-bodied red wines more than champagne, his very British love of crumpets (accompanied with quince jelly!) instead of croissants, his funny thing for rose Turkish delight and dates dipped in dark melted chocolate -- so that when she opened the cupboard tomorrow on his first morning in San Francisco she would be able to supply his most eccentric wish effortlessly, with dainties that had been shipped in anywhere from Maine to the Napa Valley, from London to Provence, "from silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon."

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays. Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Open to a random page of your current read  and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
Here's my teaser from page 101:

The captain raced on in his speech. "We thought the girl had been killed, crushed by the fallen masonry, along with her parents and the guards. But," he said, breathing in deeply, "after the weather let up we began to clear away much of the rubble, and while all other bodies have been recovered, she appears to have vanished. There is no trace of her. It is witchcraft!"