Welcome Wednesday – Opening Lines
Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!
Last week we talked about last lines, so this week let’s discuss opening lines.
Authors, share with us your favorite very first line from one of your books. Be sure to tell us a little more about the book, too, and leave a link so we can learn more about it!
I’ll begin…
This is the very first line from my next book, due out the end of July, LOSERS WEEPERS…
“Did you get a good look at that rock?”
Now it’s your turn!
by
12 Replies to “Welcome Wednesday – Opening Lines”
Sounds interesting! Alright, I’ll give it a crack.
“My opponent is some hick from across the river they put in shorts and called a contender. ”
This is the opening of my dystopian novel “What Boys Are Made Of”–and it isn’t snips and snails, more like blood, grit, and honor. The rest of America’s on its way to recovering from the Second Civil War, but five years after the ceasefire, Appalachia’s still a post-apocalyptic hell of minefields, cartels, and outlaw camps. In the river town of Buchell, Simon “Saint” Flaherty’s getting ready for a back-alley bareknuckle match that will put him on the map for all the wrong reasons: because he accidentally kills his opponent.
In a town where most adults have fought a war, no one else seems bothered by another body, but sixteen-year-old Simon’s unprepared to be catapulted into the spotlight for the worst thing he’s ever done. With a cartel leader who’s marked him for death or glory and a dark secret that’s stalking not only him but those he loves, the question remains: is the chance to escape a life not worth living worth the danger of losing it altogether?
https://www.amazon.com/What-Boys-Made-Saint-Flaherty-ebook/dp/B01CZEN4N8
“Voices shattered the quiet of the summer day as if it were glass.”
From “Mother,” the first of my novella sequence “The Silent Years.” It tells the story of the zombie apocalypse from the point of view of three ordinary women. The protagonist of Mother, Dorothy, is a housewife in the American South (and not a particularly likable woman at the start of the book). She fights to keep her family together as the plague spreads across America.
Mother: <a href=""https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Years-Jennifer-R-Povey-ebook/dp/B00PRL5WRS?ie=UTF8&qid=1464788906&ref_=la_B006MONKKA_1_15&refinements=p_82%3AB006MONKKA&s=books&sr=1-15""
Complete Silent Years Sequence:
Okay, links didn’t work and I can’t EDIT.
https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Years-Complete-Collection/dp/1515310981?ie=UTF8&qid=1464788899&ref_=la_B006MONKKA_1_5&s=books&sr=1-5 is the second link.
Splintered wood, teeth and claws, blood in the night.
From They Mostly Come Out At Night, which arrives on Amazon in two weeks, SQUEEEEEEE!
Ahem.
“It was worse than I feared. As I turned the corner by the Cock Inn, they were waiting for me in a line across the street.”
The first line of “Gang Petition” by Peter St John
The women’s Land Army takes over the Widdlington allotments for a training school, but why should this stir up trouble in the village, especially for the kids.
How did the diocesan Bishop get involved, and even Prime Minister Winston Churchill?
Who committed the midnight act of wartime sabotage?
Why is Peter confronted with ghastly terror in an unlit midnight church, and why must Dummy be shut so often in the village lock-up?
All turns on a secret visit to bomb-menaced London; and the vicar gets his come-uppance.
“Cripes, it were a real ol’ barney…!” as Jenno would say…
Book trailer: http://youtu.be/31qE9E9u48w
“Oh, no, it’s Papa! He’s early, and look at me!”
Opening line for The Debutante Bride – a Sweet Regency Romance
~ First comes marriage, then comes love ~
Available: http://amzn.to/1NkyfOO
Justin and Beth have to work hard for their happy ending but it’s all the more satisfying because of their struggles.
~ Happy reading 🙂 ~
Thank you James for this opportunity to shill. 😛
“I didn’t want the plane to land.”
Opening words of ‘Half A Million Miles From Home – Cambodia: Then’ – the travelogue you never expected.
If you are trying to find out the best way to get in and out of Cambodia, where to go and where to eat, where to sleep and buy souvenirs, or simply how to not get lost or have your leg blown off by a land mine in Cambodia, then this is not the book you are looking for. While I did not get my leg blown off by a land mine in Cambodia myself, I would not be the guy you want telling you how to make it in and out of this country without losing a limb. Or even your room key.
But if you want to know what it was like to be an eager and completely unprepared traveler in Cambodia in 2003, in this wondrous land of trash and little boys running around with no pants on, then this is exactly the book you are looking for. Even if this isn’t what you were looking for, you’re here now. Enjoy it. That’s been my attitude my whole life and I have yet to lose a limb.
Come on, let’s ride!
https://www.amazon.com/Half-Million-Miles-Home-Cambodia/dp/0984364757?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc
According to scientific studies, Maggie knew even good girls got aroused by bad boys.
First line from the new adult romance, TELL ME A SECRET
Written in two parts, Tell Me a Secret is not your cookie cutter romance. One reader described it…you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to throw things!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N0VUNGC
They almost missed their train, the ‘train of death’ as it was later dubbed by the press.
First line of my novel, ‘Secrets of the Pomegranate’. It is the 11th March 2004, the day four trains in Madrid were bombed by Islamic terrorists, killing 200 people and injuring many more. Deborah, my (fictional) central character, was on one of the trains. As she lies in a coma, her sister Alice flies out from England, desperate to find Deborah’s diary before anyone else can get hold of it. The two sisters shared a secret, which Alice is now terrified will be discovered. At stake is all she holds dear…
Set in Granada, Spain, the novel explores the complicated ties between sisters, between mothers and sons and between lovers.
https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Pomegranate-Barbara-Lamplugh/dp/1781323690/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464795159&sr=1-2&keywords=Secrets+of+the+pomegranate
The blood would be thick that day.
That’s the opening line of my debut Biopunk novel, “Red Lakes,” which is available now in ebook or paperback on Amazon. Thanks for the opportunity to share my work.
A nuclear holocaust has devastated humanity. Out of the ashes rises a new totalitarian Soviet state that bears a chilling resemblance to a major fast food chain. Everyone eats burgers and the savior of the state-approved religion has red hair, white skin, and enormous feet. Sergei, a meat farmer in the Ukraine, learns that he is actually a clone of the State’s founder and destined to become its Premier. The secret police whisk him away to Moscow where he is prepared for absolute power. Sergei is kidnapped by a group of terrorists who are bent on overthrowing the State. They open Sergei’s eyes to the atrocities meted out by the State on its people: torture, human cloning, and dietary oppression. Sergei escapes his captors and returns to Moscow but to what end? Does he assume the Premiership or follow the terrorists in their desperate struggle?
Maybe these can be the children I never had. — From “You Will Be Like God.”
But when her husband meddles, numerous people’s lives go from mundane to complicated.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012TOEDSO
Crrraaassshhh !
The sound of the splintering mast was not only heard, but felt by us all throughout the whole ship.
SERENDEPIA
Prizewinning novel – Robert Knox in Ceylon from 1659 to 1679
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/386247
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JB1SMY0
#IAN1
Thanks,
Mike Lord.