First Lines Friday #21

It’s time for another First Lines Friday! Hosted by Wandering Words!!

What if, instead of judging a book by its cover or its author, we judged the book by its opening lines?

Here is how it works:

– Pick a book and open to the first page.

– Copy the first few lines without revealing which book it is.

– Reveal the book!

So… do these first lines entice you?

Thirty-two hours of my life are missing.
My best friend, Lydia, tells me to imagine those hours like old clothes in the back of a dark closet. Shut my eyes. Open the door. Move things around. Search.
The things I do remember, I’d rather not. Four freckles. Eyes that aren’t black but blue, wife open, two inches from mine. Insects gnawing into a smooth, soft cheek. The grit of the earth in my teeth. Those parts, I remember.

Scroll down to reveal the book!

Black Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin

Another book I’ve owned for a while! This one was gifted to be by my lovely boyfriend at the beginning of our relationship. I was so eager to read it but didn’t want to spend the money, so he grabbed me it. And yet here I am, 4 years later, and I’ve still not read it. I randomly went off of thrillers, I don’t know why and I’m not sure how to get myself interested in them again. So for now this sits at the back of my shelf in shame.

First Lines Friday #20

It’s time for another First Lines Friday! Hosted by Wandering Words!!

What if, instead of judging a book by its cover or its author, we judged the book by its opening lines?

Here is how it works:

– Pick a book and open to the first page.

– Copy the first few lines without revealing which book it is.

– Reveal the book!

So… do these first lines entice you?

On a blustery autumn day a galley was nosing up the wide loop of a British river that widened into the harbour of Rutupiae. The tide was low, and the mud-banks at either hand that would be covered at high tide were alive with curlew and sandpiper. And out of the waste of the sandbank and sour salting, higher and nearer as the time went by, rose Rutupiae: the long, whale-backed hump of the island and the grey ramparts of the fortress, with the sheds of the dockyard massed below it.

Scroll down to reveal the book!

The Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff

Exactly the sort of start I’d expect for a historical fiction! The above isn’t actually the cover I have for this book, as I have it in a bind up of the Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles, I’ll pop my version down below. This is a bind up I’ve owned for quite some time now and I enjoyed the first book but just never got around to picking the other two up. One day!

The Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles bind up by Rosemary Sutcliff. This is the edition that I have

First Lines Friday #19

It’s time for another First Lines Friday! Hosted by Wandering Words!!

What if, instead of judging a book by its cover or its author, we judged the book by its opening lines?

Here is how it works:

– Pick a book and open to the first page.

– Copy the first few lines without revealing which book it is.

– Reveal the book!

So… do these first lines entice you?

The narrows remind me of August nights in the South. They remind me of old rocks and places where the light can’t reach.

They remind me of smoke – the stale, settled kind – and of storms and damp earth.

Most of all, Da, they remind me of you.

Scroll down to reveal the book!

The Archived by V.E. Schwab

This start seems… a lot more normal than I was expecting. Why was I expecting to be diving straight into fantasy? I guess because I’ve only read ADSOM (A Darker Shade of Magic) by Schwab. This has been on my shelves for over 2 years now. I got it Christmas 2018 in a bind up of this and The Unbound, the second book in the series. I’m not sure whether it’s because the book is so big that’s been putting me off, or if it’s something else. Either way, I need to get around to this at some point.

First Lines Friday #18

It’s time for another First Lines Friday! Hosted by Wandering Words!!

What if, instead of judging a book by its cover or its author, we judged the book by its opening lines?

Here is how it works:

– Pick a book and open to the first page.

– Copy the first few lines without revealing which book it is.

– Reveal the book!

So… do these first lines entice you?

Helena Marcus had not given much thought to her marriage. She was no princess, whose wedding could change the course of nations, and neither was she a creature of high society, confident that suitors might come knocking on her door, eager to make first impressions with the hope of being remembered as a mutually beneficial option after the Computer did its work at genetic matchmaking. Her parents were neither destitute nor disreputable, but rather quiet citizens of the Empire, and despite their professional accomplishments, they were, by and large, given privacy to continue their work.

Scroll down to reveal the book!

That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston

What a start! Introducing straight away the concept of genetic matchmaking by a government as well as secretive researchers for parents? Right up my alley! Have you read this one? I’ve heard almost nothing about it but the synopsis along with these first lines have me hooked!

First Lines Friday #17

It’s time for another First Lines Friday! Hosted by Wandering Words!! Why do these keep scheduling on big dates?! Again! This one was scheduled in November just like the last one so leave me be hahaha!

What if, instead of judging a book by its cover or its author, we judged the book by its opening lines?

Here is how it works:

– Pick a book and open to the first page.

– Copy the first few lines without revealing which book it is.

– Reveal the book!

So… do these first lines entice you?

Out of the gravel there are peonies growing. They come up through the loose grey pebbles, their buds testing the air like snails’ eyes, then swelling and opening, huge dark-red flowers all shining and glossy like satin. Then they burst and fall to the ground.

Scroll down to reveal the book!

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

This is a book I picked up from the mini library in the office before I shifted to working from home. I only looked at it cause it was by Atwood and I’ve only read The Handmaid’s Tale and Testaments so I wanted to try out some different books by her. This isn’t the most interesting of first paragraphs but I did skim the first page and mixed with the synopsis that this is about a murderer… I’m interested!

First Lines Friday #15

It’s time for another First Lines Friday! Hosted by Wandering Words!! Why do these keep scheduling on big dates?! Again! This one was scheduled in November just like the last one so leave me be hahaha!

What if, instead of judging a book by its cover or its author, we judged the book by its opening lines?

Here is how it works:

– Pick a book and open to the first page.

– Copy the first few lines without revealing which book it is.

– Reveal the book!

So… do these first lines entice you?

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there are unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed.

Scroll down to reveal the book!

Jane Austen’s Persuasion

Jesus Christ!! That was one sentence?!?! It never stopped! I mean I’m interested but also what the hell hahaha. Well I guess I’ll have to wait and see how I feel about the writing in the book as a whole. As far as I can tell this is the protagonists dad that we’re starting with, which was unexpected. I’ll just have to see!

First Lines Friday #14

It’s time for another First Lines Friday! Hosted by Wandering Words!! Why do these keep scheduling on big dates?! Again! This one was scheduled in November just like the last one so leave me be hahaha!

What if, instead of judging a book by its cover or its author, we judged the book by its opening lines?

Here is how it works:

– Pick a book and open to the first page.

– Copy the first few lines without revealing which book it is.

– Reveal the book!

So… do these first lines entice you?

Katie Browne is packing.
She gropes under her bed, seizing her blue backpack with the faux leather trim and begins stuffing clothes and toiletries into it with frantic energy, her eyes blinded by tears.

Scroll down to reveal the book!

Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan

What an interesting start to a book! This definitely gives me more YA feels than I was expecting for an adult thriller but knowing the synopsis of the book (which I won’t give as I know some like to go into thrillers blind) it does make sense and I really wanna know what happens next!

First Lines Friday #13

It’s time for another First Lines Friday! Hosted by Wandering Words!! It might be Christmas day but book blogs stop for nobody!! (and this was prescheduled in November, so sue me)

What if, instead of judging a book by its cover or its author, we judged the book by its opening lines?

Here is how it works:

– Pick a book and open to the first page.

– Copy the first few lines without revealing which book it is.

– Reveal the book!

So… do these first lines entice you?

On the day King George V was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London, Billy Williams went down the pit in Aberowen, South Wales.

The twenty-second of June 1911 was Billy’s thirteenth birthday. He was woken by his father. Da’s technique for waking people was more effective than it was kind. He patter Billy’s cheek, in a regular rhythm, firmly and insistently. Billy was in a deep sleep, and for a second he tried to ignore it, but the patting went on relentlessly. Momentarily he felt angry; but then he remembered that he had to get up, he even wanted t get up, and he opened his eyes and sat upright with a jerk.

‘Four o’clock,’ Da said, then he left the room, his boots banging on the wooden staircase as he went down.

Scroll down to reveal the book!

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

A first for my first lines fridays! All the other books I’ve mentioned so far I’ve not started, but I’m actually around 100 pages into this book. But… I’ve been 100 pages in for well over a year… Right look it’s a big boy. My edition is 851 pages long and a girl gets intimidated! But I am still really interested in this book and series. It’s a historical fiction with the first book being set during the Great War, the second being through WWII and the third in the Cold War (which I know the least about cause I’m British and we barely study it in school haha). I definitely plan on getting my butt in gear and reading this one, but it’s just pushing myself on through!

First Lines Friday #12

It’s time for another First Lines Friday! Hosted by Wandering Words!!

What if, instead of judging a book by its cover or its author, we judged the book by its opening lines?

Here is how it works:

– Pick a book and open to the first page.

– Copy the first few lines without revealing which book it is.

– Reveal the book!

So… do these first lines entice you?

Hushflowers always bloomed when the night was longest. The whole city celebrated the day the bundle of petals peeled apart into rich red – partly because hushflowers were their nation’s lifeblood, and partly, Akos thought, to keep them all from going crazy in the cold.

That evening, on the day of the Blooming ritual, he was sweating into his coat as he waited for the rest of the family to be ready, so he went out to the courtyard to cool off. The Kerseth house was built in a circle around a furnace, all the outermost and innermost walls curved. For luck, supposedly.

Scroll down to reveal the book!

Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth
GIF taken from: http://thepewterwolf.blogspot.com/2016/11/carve-mark-event.html

This wasn’t the beginning I expected from this book! I’m not entirely sure what I expected, probably something more violent and action packed. But this definitely intrigues me, I wanna know if this flower matters to the story, why Akon doesn’t seem to care about it and where they live that is so damn cold!

First Lines Friday #11

It’s time for another First Lines Friday! Hosted by Wandering Words!!

What if, instead of judging a book by its cover or its author, we judged the book by its opening lines?

Here is how it works:

– Pick a book and open to the first page.

– Copy the first few lines without revealing which book it is.

– Reveal the book!

So… do these first lines entice you?

Apart from life, a strong constitution and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name, Rolihlahla. In Xhosa, Rolihlahla literally means ‘pulling the branch of a tee’, but its colloquial meaning more accurately would be ‘troublemaker’.

Scroll down to reveal the book!

A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

At around 750 this is a big book, and that is the main reason I’ve not read this one yet! It was gifted to me by the amazing Kari at Kar-ing for Books and I can’t wait to read this and learn so so much. Mandela’s autobiography is one which many have read, and is one of only two books I’ve ever lied about reading (for English at A Level, leave me alone alright it was a tough year) so that is definitely something I want to rectify!

I had a flick through it to get these first lines, which sound so interesting already, and the book is broken down into much more manageable chunks so this already feels much more readable than I first thought. I might have to pick this up soon!