New book meme! I learned about this via the lovely Laurel Rain-Snow and decided to join. First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros is being hosted by Bibliophile By The Sea-- as it says, you pick a book and post the opening paragraph and see if other people would like to read the book based on its opener.

House of Many Shadows  / Barbara Michaels 1975, Fawcett Crest

The sounds bothered Meg most. Calling them auditory hallucinations helped a little-- a phenomenon is less alarming when it has a proper, technical name. Meg had always thought of hallucinations as something one saw. She had those, too, but for some illogical reason it was easier for her to accept visual illusions as nonreal than to ignore the hallucinatory sounds. When you were concentrating on typing a letter and a voice said something in your ear, it was impossible not to be distracted.


The problem was hard to explain, and Meg wasn't doing a good job of explaining. But then it had always been difficult to explain anything to Sylvia. Sylvia knew all the answers.


Meg tried again.


"The Dictaphone was absolutely impossible. I couldn't hear what Mr. Phillips had said. Voices kept mumbling, drowning out his voice. Once the whole Mormon Tabernacle Choir cut out the second paragraph of a very important memo."