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
Lines
A GREY BIRD GLIDED IN AND OUT OF HARRY’S FIELD OF vision. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Slow time. Somebody had been talking about ‘slow time’ on TV yesterday. This was slow time. Like on Christmas Eve before Father Christmas came. Or sitting in the electric chair before the current was turned on.
He drummed harder.
They were parked in the open area behind the ticket booths at the toll gate. Ellen turned up the radio a notch. The commentator spoke with reverence and solemnity.
‘The plane landed fifty minutes ago, and at exactly 6.38 a.m. the President set foot on Norwegian soil. He was welcomed by the Mayor of Ullensaker. It is a wonderful autumn day here in Oslo: a splendid Norwegian backdrop to this summit meeting.
The Book Is…

(Harry Hole #3)
by Jo Nesbø
Alex
Clever concept – I love it when the first line sucks me in
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Same, Its a good book
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I’ve never read anything by this author but I’ve heard lots of good things.
Gemma @ Gemma’s Book Nook
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He’s decent
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