Tag: Opening Lines

First Lines Friday – 29/08/2025

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In another First Lines Friday, I feature another book I’m reading as part of my upcoming ChatGPT recommendations reading challenge. Yes, I’m absolutely trying to get you as excited for my thoughts on this challenge as I am to taking part in it! 

For this challenge, I’m reading and reviewing three books. Last week I featured the most mainstream author and book on the list. Today, I’m doing a 180° and reviewing the indie author I was recommended after requesting a less mainstream novel. 

Now, here are the opening lines of today’s feature. Then, I’ll tell you more about the book…

A trickle of blood oozed down the cold steel of Aldrich’s sword. Drops splattered onto dry leaves, staining them red. He pressed his back against the old tree’s gnarled trunk, rough bark scratching his skin through his shirt. Thirty yards away lay the still-warm corpse of the man he’d put down, one arm outstretched, reaching for a knife discarded in the undergrowth. There was a smell of wrongness about the body, and something odd about its appearance; it looked… denser, somehow. 

Eyes closed and barely breathing, Aldrich waited, listening. All was silent.

 

 

A Crucible of Souls – Mitchell Hogan 

Genre: Fantasy 

Pages: 500

Audience: Adult

Publisher: Indie, then Harper Voyager

Publication Date: July 2013

Goodreads – A Crucible of Souls

 

Mitchell Hogan, an imaginative new talent, makes his debut with the acclaimed first installment in the epic Sorcery Ascendant Sequence, A Crucible of Souls, a mesmerising tale of high fantasy that combines magic, malevolence, and mystery.

When young Caldan’s parents are brutally slain, the boy is raised by monks who initiate him into the arcane mysteries of sorcery.

Growing up plagued by questions about his past, Caldan vows to discover who his parents were and why they were violently killed. The search will take him beyond the walls of the monastery, into the unfamiliar and dangerous chaos of city life. With nothing to his name but a pair of mysterious heirlooms and a handful of coins, he must prove his talent to become apprenticed to a guild of sorcerers.

But the world outside the monastery is a darker place than he ever imagined, and his treasured sorcery has disturbing depths he does not fully understand. As a shadowed evil manipulates the unwary and forbidden powers are unleashed, Caldan is plunged into an age-old conflict that will bring the world to the edge of destruction.

Soon, he must choose a side and face the true cost of uncovering his past.

 

My Thoughts…

One aspect I enjoy most about blogging is getting the opportunity to read and rep indie or lesser-known authors. BookTok and other socials are great at keeping the mainstream on top of the list. And that’s great – there are lots of mainstream authors I enjoy and love to see content about. 

However, the status quo has an opportunity to change with the introduction of new voices. I love variety, and so I’m excited to feature Mitchell Hogan, an Aussie author who originally published independently before A Crucible of Souls was picked up by Harper Voyager. 

Advertised as a coming-of-age novel, it leans into a well known fantasy trope. Broadly I do enjoy these, and it’s been some time since I picked one up. What does A Crucible of Souls have to offer? ChatGPT recommended this book to me for its inclusion of forbidden knowledge and magic, and a morally grey protagonist. 

I’m really excited to read this soon! 

Thanks for reading today’s First Lines Friday post! Have you read A Crucible of Souls? 

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Top Ten Tuesday – Opening Lines

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When I saw the topic for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday post, I knew I had to do it. I love sharing the opening lines of books in the hopes that it will encourage someone to try a new, different book. Regular readers will know I have a fortnightly First Lines Friday series, in which I choose a book and share the opening paragraph.

Today’s post is all about my top ten opening lines. To avoid regurgitating content and boring you all to death with a blog post thousands of words long, I’ve decided to be selective about my books and pick the best one (or two!) liner beginnings that appeal to me. I have read most of these books, but there are a couple that are still on the TBR.

Shall we dive in?

 

The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss

Goodreads – The Name of the Wind

It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

 

Dear Child – Romy Hausmann

Goodreads – Dear Child

On the first day I lose my sense of time, my dignity and a molar.

 

1984 – George Orwell

Goodreads – 1984

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

 

The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

Goodreads – The Handmaid’s Tale

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

 

The Gunslinger – Stephen King

Goodreads – The Gunslinger

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

 

If We Were Villains – M L Rio

Goodreads – If We Were Villains

I sit with my wrists cuffed to the table and I think, But that I am forbid / To tell the secrets of my prison-house, / I could a tale unfold whose lightest word / Would harrow up thy soul.

 

Blackwing – Ed Mcdonald

Blackwing

Goodreads – Blackwing

Somebody warned them that we were coming.

 

The Testaments – Margaret Atwood

Goodreads – The Testaments

Only dead people are allowed to have statues, but I have been given one while still alive. Already I am petrified.

 

IT – Stephen King

Goodreads – IT

The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years – if it ever did end – began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

 

Vox – Christina Dalcher

Goodreads – Vox

If anyone told me I could bring down the president, and the Pure Movement, and that incompetent little shit Morgan LeBron in a week’s time, I wouldn’t believe them. But I wouldn’t argue.

So, what do you think of this week’s Top Ten Tuesday post? Do any of these catch your eye? What are your favourite opening lines? Let me know in the comments!

 

 

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