First Line of the Book You're Reading

[Chrissy]

'History won't remember one of the most important meetings to ever occur.'

 

The Darkest Gate by SM Reine

[Brian.]

I once participated in a twenty-three-day wilderness program in the mountains of Colorado.

 

Waking Up by Sam Harris

[Lau_Lou]

Baynard's Castle, London, England, November 1501

 

I am to wear white and green, as a Tudor princess. Really, I think of myself as the one and only Tudor princess, for my sister Mary is too young to do more than be brought in by her nurse at supper time, and taken out again. 

 

Three Sisters Three Queens 

by Philippa Gregory 

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Lau_Lou

[Lau_Lou]

Apparently (at least, so she told me) it all happened because her best friend Keisha had to stay behind after school for hockey practise. 

 

Dinner For Two by Mike Gayle

[Lau_Lou]

"Maud? Was I boring you so much like that you'd rather stand outside in the dark?" 

 

Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey

[Lau_Lou]

The awning that hangs over the window is a tired yellow and white stripe and much of the paint has flaked off the sign above the door announcing that this is The Sunflower Cafe. 

 

Afternoon Tea At The Sunflower Cafe by Milly Johnson

[Lau_Lou]

When Claire Bixby was nine, she decided that one day she'd like to live in Hollywood, because she wanted to be in movies. 

 

The Doriss Day Vintage Film Club by Fiona Harper 

[Marie H]

As it turned out, I didn’t kill myself - The Nothing Girl by Jodi Taylor

[Lau_Lou]

It was Midsummer's Eve. This is the most magical night of the year. Many curious things can happen in it before it gives way to the dawn. 

 

Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane by P L Travers

[Hayley]

Everyone remembers where they were when the BookWorld was remade.

 

One of Our Thursdays is Missing - Jasper Fforde 

[Lau_Lou]

The fish were staring at her 

 

Inside Strangers' Houses by Elizabeth Mundy

[Lau_Lou]

The little house in Waterloo Street rocked to the sound of singing, and Thursday Tilford laughed, blushing at the attention.

 

A Girl Called Thursday by Lilian Harry

[Brian.]

The man in the green hat always got on at Bercy, always via the doors at the front of the carriage, and then exited via the same doors at La Motte-Picquet-Grenelle, exactly seventeen minutes later.

 

The Girl Who Reads on the Metro by Christine Feret-Fleury

[Hayley]

We rowed out through the harbour, past bobbing boats weeping rust from their seams, past juries of silent seabirds roosting atop barnacled remains of sunken docks, past fishermen who lowered their nets to stare frozenly as we slipped by, uncertain whether we were real or imagined; a procession of waterborne ghosts, or ghosts soon to be.

 

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs 

[Lau_Lou]

It wasn't as though the farm hadn't seen death before, and the blowflies didn't discriminate. To them there was little difference between a carcass and a corpse. 

 

The Dry by Jane Harper

[johnmorgan]

This is the way the world ends. Again. Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. 

Every age must come to an end. N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season 

 

[Lau_Lou]

LONDON, MAY, 1874

 

The small patch of sky just visible between the sooty clouds was the same shade of blue as the forget-me-nots and ribbons on her new bonnet: a birthday present from her father. 

 

The Constant Heart by Dilly Court

[Lau_Lou]

SPRING 1521

 

I could hear a roll of muffled drums. But I could see nothing but the lacing of the bodice of the lady in front of me, blocking my view of the scaffold. I had been at this court for more than a year and attended hundreds of festivities; but never before one like this. 

 

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Lau_Lou
changing incorrect spelling of word.

[Hayley]

'We start at midwinter, when most plant life is dormant'. 

Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland by Lisa Schneidau 

 

and (because, unusually for me, I'm reading two books at once)

 

'Whenever I am unable to walk, climb or sail away from the world, I have learned to shut it out'.

Silence in the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge

[Hayley]

'The little girl clung to the crone's long skirts, even though the woman scared her as much as the surrounding darkness'.

 

The Dance of the Serpents by Oscar de Muriel

[Lau_Lou]

The really weird thing about it was that although I knew, instantly, that something was wrong - very, very wrong, something sharp,something very serious; an insult to my entire body - I couldn't stop laughing. Laughing hysterically. 

 

The Loveliest Chocolate Shop In Paris by Jenny Colgan 

[Brian.]

The morning one of the lost twins returned to Mallard, Lou LeBon ran to the diner to break the news, and even now, many years later, everyone remembers the shock of sweaty Lou pushing through thr glass doors, chest heaving, neckline darkened with his own effort.

 

The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett.

[Brian.]

The Red Union had been attacking the headquarters of the April Twenty-eigth Brigade for two day.

 

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

[Hayley]

Marietta Stelle’s mother always said that nothing good came of a rainy day.

 

Midnight in Everwood by M.A. Kuzniar

[Hayley]

Perhaps if Morton had not stopped to mop his brow in that precise spot, he might never have noticed the black-and-white house.

 

‘A Study in Black and White’ by Bridget Collins (in The Haunting Season: Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights)