September 6th's Book Beginnings and Friday 56

We've made it to Friday!  How is it a short week can feel so long?  Anyway, here's my Book Beginnings and Friday 56 for the week.

This week's book is Deadweather and Sunrise, the first in a Middle Grade adventure series.  I actually just finished the book a few hours ago and will have my review up in time for Marvelous Middle Grade Monday.  Spoiler Alert - I enjoyed the book.

Here's how it starts:

Nobody lived on Deadweather but us and the pirates.  It wasn't hard to understand why.  For one thing, the weather was atrocious.  Eleven months out of twelve, it was brutally hot and humid, with no wind at all, so on a bad day the air felt like a hot, soggy blanket smothering you from all sides.

The other month was September, which meant hurricanes.

Yes, the reference to September is purely coincidental for me and my reading of the book.

Meanwhile, here's from page 56.

According to Millicent and Pembroke, what was going to happen was that we were all going to get into the basket, and the balloon was going to rise up and take us into the air like birds.  But none of us really believed it, and although Millicent and Pembroke were selling us pretty hard on the idea, I couldn't help suspect they were playing some kind of elaborate practical joke on us.

I should mention I won this book in a contest.  I'm glad I did because I probably wouldn't have read it other wise, and I will definitely be continuing the series.