“By our grandfather’s cabin, on the high ridge, opposite a slope of buckeye trees, Claire sits on her horse, wrapped in a thick blanket. She has camped all night and lit a fire in the hearth of that small structure our ancestor built more than a generation ago, and which he lived in like a hermit or some creature, when he first came to this country. He was a self-sufficient bachelor who eventually owned all the land he looked down onto. He married lackadaisically when he was forty, had one son, and left him this farm along the Petaluma road.”
‘Divisadero’ by Michael Ondaatje 
Amazon

Try one of these 1st paras & discover a new author:-
‘Tipping the Velvet’ by Sarah Waters
‘Back When We Were Grownups’ by Anne Tyler
‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
DIVISADERO by Michael Ondaatje #books http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1KL via @SandraDanby