First Lines: Silk

“Dressing the dead required a certain dexterity and patience. William surveyed his work with pride. A pity no one would see his accomplishment. He doubted Isabeau’s maid could’ve done much better.”

It is the time of Jack the Ripper, the widowed Queen Victoria sits on the throne of England. The whole of London is on edge wondering when or where Jack will kill next. The Palace, Parliament, and the press are demanding the police do more to find him. In another part of London, rough-around-the-edges war hero, Metropolitan Detective Inspector Rudyard Bloodstone has his own serial killer to find. Inter departmental rivalries, politics, and little evidence to go on hamper the investigation at every turn. In a battle of wills, Bloodstone presses forward following his instincts in spite of the obstacles. Adding to those problems, away from the strains of the investigation, he is engaged in the ups and downs of a new relationship with a lovely hat maker.

An intriguing start. I like books where you are immediately wondering what on earth is going on. This book starts of intriguing and only gets more so. I am looking forward to finding out how this book ends.

Would you read this book based on the first line, cover or description?

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First Lines: Tangled Webs

“Lord Huntington made his way through the crowded ballroom with the poise and elegance of an over-fattened Christmas goose.”

London, 1725. Everybody has a secret. Lady A will keep yours—for a price. This sumptuous, scandalous YA novel is wickedly addictive.

Lady A is the most notorious blackmailer in the city. With just a mask and a gown to disguise her, she sweeps into lavish balls and exclusive events collecting the most valuable currency in 1725 London—secrets.

But leading a double life isn’t easy. By day Lady A is just a sixteen-year-old girl named Arista who lives in fear of her abusive master, Bones, and passes herself off as a boy to move safely through the squalor of London’s slums. When Bones attempts to dispose of his pawn forever, Arista is rescued by the last person she expects: Jonathan Wild, the infamous Thief Taker General who moves seamlessly between the city’s criminal underworld and its most elite upper circles. Arista partners with Wild on her own terms in the hopes of saving enough money to buy passage out of London.

Everything changes when she meets Graeden Sinclair, the son of a wealthy merchant. Grae has traveled the world, has seen the exotic lands Arista has longed to escape to her whole life, and he loves Arista for who she is—not for what she can do for him. Being with Grae gives something Arista something precious that she swore off long ago: hope. He has promised to help Arista escape the life of crime that has claimed her since she was a child. But can you ever truly escape the past?

I normally don’t do books I am currently reading, I just do ones I have read a while ago, but I had to share this one. It made me smile from the off.

Would you read this book based on the first line, cover or blurb? Have you read the book did you enjoy it?

Happy Reading

Emma

First Lines: Between Two Thorns

“That night in Bath was the third time Sam’s beer bladder had got him into trouble.”

Something is wrong in Aquae Sulis, Bath’s secret mirror city.

The new season is starting and the Master of Ceremonies is missing. Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is assigned with the task of finding him with no one to help but a dislocated soul and a mad sorcerer.

There is a witness but his memories have been bound by magical chains only the enemy can break. A rebellious woman trying to escape her family may prove to be the ally Max needs.

But can she be trusted? And why does she want to give up eternal youth and the life of privilege she’s been born into?

Would you read this book based on the first line, synopsis and/or cover.

I love this book. 🙂

First Lines: The Keep

The Castle was falling apart, but at 2am, under a useless moon, Danny couldn’t see this.

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

Award-winning author Jennifer Egan brilliantly conjures a world from which escape is impossible and where the keep-–the tower, the last stand-–is both everything worth protecting and the very thing that must be surrendered in order to survive.

Two cousins, irreversibly damaged by a childhood prank, reunite twenty years later to renovate a medieval castle in Eastern Europe. In an environment of extreme paranoia, cut off from the outside world, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a prisoner, in jail for an unnamed crime, recounts an unforgettable story that seamlessly brings the crimes of the past and present into piercing relation.

Would you read this book based on the first line, the cover or the blurb, a mix or not at all? Let me know what you think 🙂

First Lines: Priestess of the White

Auraya stepped over a fallen log, taking care that mo crinkle of crushed leaves or snapping of twigs betrayed her presence.

Priestess of the White by Trudi Canavan.

This is one of my favourite books of all time 🙂

The first sentence doesn’t give much away, but it shows an elegant writing style 🙂

Would you read this book based on the first line?