First Lines Fridays #5

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

“Paris? You can’t be serious!” Felicity cried, the shock registering on her face. “Please tell me you’re joking, Maxwell?” Her voice wobbled as her eyes searched her husband’s. “I’m afraid not, dear,” he replied gently, looking away uncomfortably. “It’s Paris, I’m afraid – for a year.” He shifted from foot to foot, not knowing what to say to make it more acceptable. He wondered if he were tall, dark and muscular instead of small, blond and rotund – cuddly, his daughters called him – might he be able to handle this situation better. He was easy-going and jovial and hated confrontations and rows. “Oh God, not Paris,” Felicity continued, her plummy well-modulated voice rising uncharacteristically. “You know I detest France. Nobody speaks English there and the French are so rude. Do we have to go?” Max sighed, at a loss for words to calm her. “Well, I suppose you could stay here in London and I could commute every weekend,” he suggested hopefully, thinking of what bliss it would be to have a Felicity-free working week.

And The Book Is…