First things first, a bit of a book rant, there’s a book I was so excited about when I found out about it, but I can’t get past the 20-page mark and still understand what is going on, and I have restarted four times, so I think it’s time to remove it from my TBR. The book is How Queer Bookshops Changed the World by A.J West, so please, if you read it, share your thoughts with me.
First Lines Friday is a weekly feature for book lovers that was formerly 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!
Note: The original host blog does not appear to be active any longer, but if anyone knows of a new host, please share the information!
First Lines:
There was music. A Chopin nocturne. Ruth kept her eyes closed, her thoughts drifting to her aunt’s Paris apartment. Aunt Sabine, bent over the piano keys, her blonde head bobbing, her face twitching like a rabbit’s as she emphasised the notes. Lilias seated so close to Ruth on the chic white sofa that Ruth could feel her body shaking with suppressed laughter. Their mother in the armchair opposite, frowning slightly, well aware of their torment.
Goodreads Blurb:
Elise, an artist grieving the loss of her son and a fracturing marriage, is in North Norfolk to restore Marsh House to its former glory, its walls adorned with the fading murals and paintings of its long-ago owner, Lilias Carter-Brown. Elise makes an immediate connection to the house, to Sam—a carpenter and a comfort—and to history itself when an old photograph draws Elise into Lilias’s heartbreaking past.
In 1939, with war threatening, Lilias and her sister turn Marsh House into a sanctuary for London evacuees—a young boy and his mother. But it’s the boy’s father, Harry, an enlistee soon to report for duty, with whom Lilias forms an unexpected and intimate bond. When Harry suddenly vanishes without a trace, it changes the course of Lilias’s life forever.
Now, as Elise and Sam work to solve the mystery of the disappearance, the restoration of Marsh House is bringing Elise back to life as well—to love again, to put her and Lilias’s pasts to rest, and to finally move on.
Goodreads Link Here
StoryGraph Link Here