First Lines Fridays: May 10, 2019

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

When I was a child, my parents and teachers told me about a man who was very strong. They told me he could destroy the whole world. They told me he could lift mountains. They told me he could part the sea. It was important to keep the man happy. When we obeyed what the man had commanded, the man liked us. He liked us so much that he killed anyone who didn’t like us. But when we didn’t obey what he had commanded, he didn’t like us. He hated us. Some days he hated us so much, he killed us; other days, he let other people kill us. We call these days “holidays.”

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First Lines Fridays: May 3, 2019

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house.

It was a very old house — it had an attic under the roof and a cellar under the ground and an overgrown garden with huge old trees in it.


Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

First Lines Fridays: April 26, 2019

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

In March 51 BC, with the death of her father the pharaoh, the girl must have contemplated her situation as she stared through the hazy crystal glass into the face of the mummified god. It was well known that his blood ran through her veins, and although she was a mere seventeen years old he had been even younger when he led the first of his military campaigns which ultimately conquered the known world. By reviving his empire to its former greatness, she would prove herself his true heir.

Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

First Lines Fridays: April 19, 2019

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

Dear Reader,

I am not a movie star. Chances are when you walked by my book and saw my face, you didn’t know what my name was, but you knew that I looked familiar.


Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

First Lines Fridays: April 12, 2019

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

Have you ever been on vacation, at the seashore, perhaps, or a desert resort in New Mexico — somewhere away from city lights — and looked up, seemingly for the first time, at a sky full of stars.

Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

First Lines Fridays: April 5, 2019

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

Even with all of the star treatment accorded her over the years, the truth is undeniable:  It has never been easy being Elizabeth Taylor.

Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

First Lines Fridays: March 29, 2019

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

Nanna and Poppy live in a big house in the middle of town. There’s a brick path that goes to the back porch, but before you get there you pass right by the kitchen window. That’s the Hello, Goodbye Window.

Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

First Lines Fridays: March 22, 2019

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

The day we threw Aunt Helen’s ashes into the Atlantic Ocean was very windy. I’m assuming you’ve never seen someone get a mouthful of their dead sister’s ashes, but that is exactly what happened to my dad, in slow motion, his mouth opening into an O as he lifted the top off the urn and thrust it forward. We all watched the ashes fly in a perfect arc out of the urn, and then we all watched them change direction in midair as a sudden gust of wind sent them back, back, directly into my father’s waiting horrified mouth.

Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

First Lines Fridays: March 15, 2019

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

There are long stretches where I don’t remember anything.

Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

First Lines Fridays: March 8, 2019

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

This time there would be no witnesses.

This time there was just the dead earth, a rumble of thunder, and the onset of that interminable light drizzle from the northeast by which so many of the world’s most momentous events seem to be accompanied.


Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!