Category: First Line Friday

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 160 | Memphis Grace by Catriona McKeown

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from Memphis Grace by Catriona McKeown, a book that’s been on my to-read pile for ages. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:

People say I'm angry. And yeah, I am angry. I am angry at the world. Angry at Mikaela.

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

 

About Memphis Grace

Graceland was named after the King of Pop’s mansion by her Elvis- obsessed mum. But she’s not rich, not famous and definitely not noticeable.

She’s always just been Mikaela’s best friend.

That is, until Mikaela leaves school without explanation and Graceland finds herself noticed by Cooper Dally. Popular boy and Mikaela’s EX-BOYFRIEND. Now she’s the centre of attention: big parties, new dresses and girlfriend to Cooper. Graceland is finally changing her stars.

But Cooper has expectations Graceland can’t meet. And when the truth behind Mikaela’s leaving comes out, Graceland realises Cooper might not be the guy she thought he was. Worse, it could cost Graceland more than she’s willing to give to be noticed.

You can find Memphis Grace online at:

Amazon | Goodreads

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week #159 | The Death Beat by Fiona Veitch Smith

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from The Death Beat by Fiona Veitch Smith, the third book in the Poppy Denby Investigates series (which I’m currently working my way through). Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:

The ferryman lit a cigarette and waited. He would get into trouble, no doubt, but he didn't care.

This is a fun series, recommended for fans of Agatha Christie and Julianna Deering. And the first four books are currently just USD 1.99 on Kindle 🙂

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

About The Death Beat

Poppy looked up, her face pale, her hands shaking. What is it, Poppy? Oh my, Rollo, oh my. I think we’ve just struck gold. Poppy Denby is furious with Rollo, who has gambled away his position at the Daily Globe and is being banished to New York. That is, until she discovers he plans to take her with him to work at the New York Times! Poppy can’t wait to report on the Manhattan arts scene, but her hopes are crushed when she is allocated The Death Beat – writing obituaries.

But Poppy has a nose for a story, and when a body is found in a luxury penthouse apartment she starts to investigate. She unravels a sordid trail of illegal immigrants, forced labour, sex scandals, and an unexpected ghost from her past. Poppy is determined to help the victims, but can she find the evidence to bring the perpetrators to justice without putting her own life in danger…

You can find The Death Beat online at:

Amazon | BookBub | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 158 | Skydiving to Love by Linda W Yezak

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from Skydiving to Love by Linda W Yezak. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:

Breathe. Just breathe. JoJo Merritt squeezed her eyelids together and clamped her hands onto the armrest.

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

 

About Skydiving to Love

JoJo Merritt is a country veterinarian who has never jumped out of anything higher than a hayloft, much less an airplane. But thanks to her friends’ dare, now she must.

What she discovers during her flight to the skydiving school in San Antonio is guaranteed to make her short vacation miserable: She is terrified of flying! How is she going to leap from a plane if she can’t stand being in one?

Mitch O’Hara, her seat mate, keeps her distracted during the flight to San Antonio, but from there, she’s on her own.

Or is she?

If Mitch felt protective of the wide-eyed, white knuckled beauty during the flight, imagine how he’ll feel the next day, when he finds her at the skydiving school, fumbling with the zipper of her jumpsuit.

By now, JoJo is certain of two things: she doesn’t want to fall from a plane, and she doesn’t want to fall for Mitch.

She’ll be in San Antonio for only five days. Can Mitch convince her to take a leap?

You can find Skydiving to Love online at:

Amazon | BookBub | Goodreads

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 157 | The Promised Land by Elizabeth Musser

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from The Promised Land by Elizabeth Musser. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:

I have spent twenty years carefully stitching my family's life together, so when it suddenly starts to unravel I find myself in a tangled knot of anxiety.

Elizabeth Musser is a must-read author for me, and the fact this novel features the Camino brought it to the top of my to-read pile!

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

 

About The Promised Land

With her oldest son taking a gap year in Europe, her aging father losing his sight and his memory, and her husband of twenty years announcing that he’s leaving her, Abbie Bartholomew Jowett is surrounded by overwhelming loss.

Desperate to mend her marriage and herself, she follows her son, Bobby, to walk the famed Camino pilgrimage. During their journey they encounter Rasa, an Iranian woman working in secret helping other refugees, and Caroline, a journalist who is studying pilgrims on the Camino while searching for answers from her broken past.

Each individual has their own reasons for the pilgrimage, but together they learn that the Camino strips you bare and calls you into deep soul-searching that can threaten all your best laid plans.

You can find The Promised Land online at:

Amazon | BookBub | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 156 | Remind Me Why I’m Here by Kat Colmer

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from Remind Me Why I’m Here from Australian Young Adult author Kat Colmer. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:

The absence of water made Maya nervous.

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

About Remind Me Why I’m Here

An Australian to-do list. A broody host brother. A disaster in the making.

When Maya leaves Chicago armed with an important Aussie must-do list, she assumes she’s heading to Barangaroo with its beautiful Sydney Harbour views–NOT Barangaroo Creek, a fly-ridden, wi-fi dead zone hours from a decent body of water. Like that’s not bad enough, her home-stay host brother Gus clearly wishes she’d landed in somebody else’s sheep paddock.

Gus has important plans this summer– plans that do NOT involve helping an animal-phobe from the States tick off items on her seriously clichéd must-do list. So he devises a list of his own–one guaranteed to send Maya packing, allowing him to enjoy the last of his freedom before he trudges off to agricultural college.

But Maya doesn’t scare that easily and soon sparks fly. Before long, Gus and Maya discover hidden depths to clichéd bucket-lists and secret summer plans. Because sometimes it takes someone half a world away to remind you why you’re really here.

You can find Remind Me Why I’m Here online at

Amazon | BookBub | Goodreads

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 155 | Things We Didn’t Say by Amy Lynn Green

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from Things We Didn’t Say, a unique debut from by Amy Lynn Green. Here’s the first line from the Prologue:

If I were an expert in criminal law, I'd be sick to death of outraged clients claiming to be falsely accursed, and especially of weepy female clients wringing their hands.

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

 

About Things We Didn’t Say

Headstrong Johanna Berglund, a linguistics student at the University of Minnesota, has very definite plans for her future . . . plans that do not include returning to her hometown and the secrets and heartaches she left behind there. But the US Army wants her to work as a translator at a nearby camp for German POWs.

Johanna arrives to find the once-sleepy town exploding with hostility. Most patriotic citizens want nothing to do with German soldiers laboring in their fields, and they’re not afraid to criticize those who work at the camp as well. When Johanna describes the trouble to her friend Peter Ito, a language instructor at a school for military intelligence officers, he encourages her to give the town that rejected her a second chance.

As Johanna interacts with the men of the camp and censors their letters home, she begins to see the prisoners in a more sympathetic light. But advocating for better treatment makes her enemies in the community, especially when charismatic German spokesman Stefan Werner begins to show interest in Johanna and her work. The longer Johanna wages her home-front battle, the more the lines between compassion and treason become blurred–and it’s no longer clear whom she can trust.

You can find Things We Didn’t Say online at

Amazon | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 154 | Grace in the Darkness by Bree Livingstone

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from Grace in the Darkness by Bree Livingstone. Here’s the first line of Chapter One:

“Lillian. Lillian? Can you hear me, Lillian?” My therapist’s voice grates on my. I’d say like nails on a chalkboard, but that wouldn’t accurately describe just how much I hate her voice.

I read Grace in the Silence when it was first released in 2017, with the title Broken Like Glass. But now it’s available with a new cover, and I think I’m going to read it again. Click here to read my review.

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

 

About Grace in the Darkness

A three-day weekend visit home goes terribly wrong when Lillian James stabs her dad and has no memory of doing it.

Now, faced with six-months of court-ordered therapy, she’s stuck in her small hometown with her high school crush, Uriah Pendleton, judgmental townsfolk, and painful childhood memories that are bubbling to the surface.

Can the Savior—who she lovingly calls Papa—heal her wounds while teaching her that the past doesn’t define the future and that He has a purpose for all things, even the bad?

You can find Grace in the Darkness online at:

Amazon | Goodreads

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 153 | The Apprentice by Kristen Young

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from Brunch at Bittersweet Cafe by Carla Laureano. Here’s the first line of Chapter One:

Some things should never be forgotten—at least, that's what they tell me.

I read an early version of The Apprentice, and it was excellent—recommended for fans of YA dystopian novels like The Hunger Games or Divergent. Yes, I’m going to read The Apprentice again and write a full review (I have to. I’ve read two versions of the end, and I need to know which one got the final tick!) I’ve also read a draft of #3 in the series. Now I’m anxiously awaiting #2!

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

 

About The Apprentice

The Love Collective is everywhere.
It sees everything.
Be not afraid.

Apprentice Flick remembers everything, except the first five years of her life. And for as long as she can remember, Flick has wanted to enter the Elite Academy—home to the best, brightest, and most loyal members of the Love Collective government.

Flick’s uncanny memory might get her there, too … even if it is the very thing that marks her as a freak. But frightening hallucinations start intruding into her days and threaten to bring down all she has worked so hard to accomplish. Why is she being hijacked by a stranger’s nightmare over and over again?

Moving to the Elite Academy could give Flick the future she’s always wanted. But her search for truth may lead to a danger she cannot escape.

You can find The Apprentice online at:

Amazon | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 152 | Scattered by Nola Lorraine

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from Scattered, the debut novel from Australian author Nola Lorraine. Here’s the first line of Chapter One:

Maggie shoved the hatch open and peeked out across the saturated deck.

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

About Scattered

To lose her family was unthinkable …
To find them will take a miracle.

While working in Europe, nineteen-year-old Maggie never dreamed that her family would be ripped apart and scattered across the sea, with her young brother and sister sent to Canada as part of the Home Children Migrant Scheme.

Desperation sends Maggie on a search from England to Canada, with a harrowing shipwreck leaving her stranded on Sable Island. Eventually arriving in Halifax, Maggie is devastated to discover the trail to find her sister and brother has gone cold.

An offer of help from industrialist Thaddeus Tharaday seems like an answer to prayer, but is the wealthy Tharaday her benefactor or nemesis?

With the help of a dashing newspaper reporter, Maggie begins to unravel the web of deceit surrounding her siblings’ disappearance. However, the closer she gets to the truth, the more dangerous her quest becomes.

You can find Scattered online at:

Amazon| Goodreads | Koorong

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 151 | The Art Fiasco by Fiona Veitch Smith

It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from The Art Fiasco by British author Fiona Veitch Smith. It’s the fifth book in her Poppy Denby mystery series, but the first one I’ve seen. I’m looking forward to reading it.

Here’s the first line of Chapter One:

Agnes Robson hurried into the church hall, smiling an apology at the gentleman in charge, and took her usual place at the easel nearest the window.

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

 

About The Art Fiasco

It’s 1924 and Poppy Denby is heading up to Northumberland to celebrate her father’s sixtieth birthday. She stops off in Newcastle en route to visit her Aunt Dot, who has temporarily relocated from London to renovate a house she’s inherited.

One of Aunt Dot’s guests is the world-renowned artist, Agnes Robson, who is staging an exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery. Reluctantly, Poppy is roped in to help when the artist’s press liaison man falls ill.

She soon discovers that the local press has dug up some dirt on Agnes relating to the tragic death of a young art teacher in Ashington Colliery, twenty-seven years earlier. As she tries to suppress the story, Poppy begins to suspect that the teacher might have been murdered and that the killer may still be on the loose…

Find The Art Fiasco online at:

Amazon | Goodreads | Koorong

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!