First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers 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!
Hello and Happy Friday!
Firstly, apologies for my tardiness on the blog this week. I’m not entirely sure where the week has gone and it is showing me I must get organised and get back into scheduling my blog posts.
I am actually starting a new book on a Friday for a change which never seems to happen anymore so I thought I would take part in First Lines Friday.
As per usual the answer is below the Lyra photos.
When I was born, they left me on a hillside. The king had given his decree – if it’s a girl, expose her on the mountain – and so some unfortunate soul was dispatched from the palace with this unwanted scrap of humanity: a baby girl instead of the glorious heir the king desired.
Get guessing!
And the answer is….
When a daughter is born to the King of Arcadia, she brings only disappointment.
Left exposed on a mountainside, the defenceless infant Atalanta, is left to the mercy of a passing mother bear and raised alongside the cubs under the protective eye of the goddess Artemis.
Swearing that she will prove her worth alongside the famed heroes of Greece, Atalanta leaves her forest to join Jason’s band of Argonauts. But can she carve out her own place in the legends in a world made for men?
Did anybody guess correctly?
Please drop me a comment with your First Line Friday and I will head over for a visit.
David Franco, a talented young scholar, is introduced to Kathryn Van Owen, a beautiful and wealthy widow with a mysterious past. Van Owen owns a sketch of an amulet; a silver medallion with a carving of the Medusa’s face on one side, and on the other a mirror reputed to confer the power of immortality upon any who look into it on a moonlit night – and she is prepared to pay David a million dollars to find it for her. If the rumours of the amulet’s powers are true David could not only pay off his dying sister’s medical bills – he could offer her a chance of survival. But David will need help if he is to find the clues scattered through art and history to the mirror’s current location. And there are others who have heard of the mirror’s powers, and they will stop at nothing to find it…In his stunning new thriller, Robert Masello blends past and present and fact and fiction to create a gripping race through history.
Review
I still have some bookshelves at my parents’ house and these shelves are full of books. I had a hunt around on these shelves and found this book and I will be honest I can’t remember buying it or owning it so it was a nice surprise. Robert Masello is also a new author for me.
I love the story of Medusa and I have always felt rather sorry for Medusa as she was very wrongly treated so it was really good to read a story linked to Medusa but she didn’t really feature in the story.
The story centres around several characters and read quite like a Dan Brown novel but in my opinion it is better than a Dan Brown novel. David Franco is a scholar from Chicago who is an expert in Renaissance art and literature. Due to his expertise he gets asked to help in what seems an impossible quest, to find the lost Amulet of Medusa. David is given the quest by the mysterious Kathryn Van Owen. Kathryn has materials from the Renaissance period that people thought no longer existed. She also seems to have a mysterious past which gives her knowledge that others do not have.
This book is full of twists and turns and features some interesting times from history. You have renaissance artists in Rome and Florence, Marie Antoinette in France and World War Two. It really showed that Masello had done his research for this book.
I really enjoyed this book and found it a thrilling read where I never knew what was going to happen next. I did find one section rather cheesy and to be honest I could have done without the dark arts element but overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I give this book 4 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Robert Masello is an award-winning journalist, TV writer, and the bestselling author of many novels and nonfiction books. A native of Evanston, Illinois, he studied writing at Princeton University under the noted authors Robert Stone and Geoffrey Wolff, and served for six years as the Visiting Lecturer in Literature at Claremont McKenna College.
Ruth Galloway has just returned from maternity leave and is struggling to juggle work and motherhood. When a team from the University of North Norfolk, investigating coastal erosion, finds six bodies buried at the foot of the cliff, she is immediately put on the case. DCI Nelson is investigating, but Ruth finds this more hindrance than help – Nelson is the father of her daughter, Kate. Still, she remains professional and concentrates on the case at hand. Forensic tests prove that the bodies are from Southern Europe, killed sixty years ago. Police Investigations unearth records of Project Lucifer, a wartime plan to stop a German invasion. A further discovery reveals that members of the Broughton Sea’s End Home Guard took a ‘blood oath’ to conceal some deadly wartime secret. The more information they uncover, the more elusive any explanation becomes. When a visiting German reporter is killed, Ruth and Nelson realise that someone is still alive who will kill to keep the secret of Broughton Sea’s End’s war years. Can they discover the truth in time to stop another murder?
Review
I am working through the Ruth Galloway series and this was my latest read and the first one that isn’t a reread for me. So far with all the Ruth Galloway books I have read, once I start them I can’t put them down and this was exactly the same.
This book shows Ruth coming to terms with being a mother, juggling work, motherhood and another murder investigation. Amongst all of this Ruth also has a friend from her past staying with her and this friend also brings memories of her experience excavating war graves all those years ago.
Though Ruth is doing her best to juggle everything she does have a support network of friends to help her and also a very generous childminder. Ruth’s biggest problem is actually asking for help when she needs it.
As we watch Ruth learning to cope we also watch Nelson trying to cope and work out how to be a father to a child he can’t own up to having. Nelson finds himself wanting it all, both Michelle and Ruth and his three daughters but he also knows this is not possible. Amongst all of this he is riddled with guilt for his affair. To be honest I’m surprised he has enough mental capacity to solve a crime with all of his emotional problems.
This book like all the Ruth Galloway books is very character driven and I love learning new things about the characters and seeing them develop. My favourite character is still Cathbad, he is such a free spirit and definitely has a particular brand of magic.
I will be honest Ruth did get a little on my nerves at times in this book and I found myself shouting be a mother and stop dashing off to see random things. Ruth put herself in a lot of danger at times and I kept thinking about little Kate who would be left alone if anything happened. I know it was all part of Ruth trying to be a mother and also not lose part of herself to motherhood but I did get frustrated with her.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and flew through it and will soon be reading book 4 of the series. I give this book another 5 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Elly Griffiths was born in London and began her career in publishing, she then turned to writing full time. In 2016 she won the CWA Dagger in the Library for her work. Griffiths lives in Brighton with her family.
Amours de Voyage is a novel in verse and is arranged in five cantos, or chapters, as a sequence of letters. It is about a group of English travellers in Italy: Claude, and the Trevellyn family, are caught up in the 1849 political turmoil. The poem mixes the political (‘Sweet it may be, and decorous, perhaps, for the country to die; but,/On the whole, we conclude the Romans won’t do it, and I sha’n’t’) and the personal (‘After all, do I know that I really cared so about her?/Do whatever I will, I cannot call up her image’). The political is important but the personal dilemmas are the crucial ones.
Claude, about to declare himself, retreats, regrets. It is this retreat, his scruples and fastidiousness, that, like a conventional novel, is the core of Amours de Voyage. The poem thus contributed something important to the modern sensibility; it is a portrait of an anti-hero; it is about love and marriage (the difficulties of); and it is about Italy.
Review
I had never heard of Arthur Hugh Clough before but I was really intrigued when I saw this book in Persephone books so I bought it. I have been reading some pretty hefty books recently so last weekend I thought I would read a shorter book as a quick read and this was the book I chose.
The first thing I loved about this book was the preface by Julian Barnes. Barnes gave a wonderful description of Clough’s life and the background behind this book. It really set the scene well.
This was quite a different read for me but one that I flew through. I really loved Claude’s thoughts on Rome as he really was very unimpressed with the whole affair and I found his reactions to it quite amusing. The book is a novel in verse and made up of letters. Claude writes to his long suffering friend Eustace and I say long suffering because I think the poor man has a lot of letters of Claude. The other letters are from the Trevellyn sisters to their friend.
I will be honest the character Claude was not my favourite. He found Rome boring, he was self centred, looked down on people and only found Mary interesting when she had gone. Personally I think Mary was better off without Claude in her life. Mary thought a lot more about Claude than Claude did about Mary.
Overall, I loved Clough’s writing and I would love to read more of his work but what let it down for me was simply his main character Claude. I just could not deal with Claude’s selfish behaviour sadly. Due to this I give the book 3 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861) was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to Florence Nightingale.
Meet Shaun Bythell, bookshop owner, bibliophile, and misanthrope extraordinaire. He lives and works in The Bookshop, Wigtown, whose crooked shelves contain anything from a sixteenth-century Bible to a first-edition Agatha Christie. A booklover’s paradise? Well, almost…
In Shaun’s honest and wryly hilarious diaries, he reveals the highs and lows of life in the book trade, as he contends with eccentric customers, bin-foraging employees, and a perennially empty till. Along the way, he’ll take you on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommend lost classics – and introduce you to the thrill of the unexpected find.
Review
I will be honest I have always rather fancied owning and running a bookshop, even though I know it would be hard work and I would probably be constantly worried about finances. However, I would be very happy to be surrounded by books all day.
I must admit I was rather surprised by this book. I picked it up at my church which has many second hand books for sale and thought it looked good fun. What I wasn’t expecting was the wit, humour and sometimes sadness within this book.
Bythell’s diary of his book shop adventures for one year was a real eye opener and very funny. Bythell’s shop seems to attract some very weird employees with the most eccentric being Nicky. I’m not entirely sure why Bythell put up with Nicky as she seemed more of hindrance to business rather than a help. I would not have had the patience Bythell has with Nicky or in fact half of his staff. Bythell at times seems to be the only sane one at the shop and that is saying something.
One of the things I really liked with the diary entries was the daily updates of takings and customers. It was really interesting to see how the time of year affected the amount of customers and takings. I also really enjoyed seeing how there are certain returning customers who are clearly returning regularly and ordering random books because they are loyal to the shop and don’t want to see it go under.
As the diary entries go on we see what a witty and humorous character Bythell is and how he clearly uses humour as his coping mechanism because without it he would clearly either cry or completely lose it with certain members of public. The element I found sad was seeing how the book trade had changed so much over the years and the damage Amazon was having on the second hand book shops. It was sad to see how the life of the second hand book shop was having to adapt to survive and even that adapting might not save it.
Wigtown has been on my list of places to go since I was a teenager and I very nearly went with my parents but ill health had to shorten our trip sadly so Wigtown was saved for another day. After reading this book I want to go even more and will be pestering my husband for a holiday there very soon. I will definitely be reading more of Bythell’s book and I give this book 5 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town, and also one of the organisers of the Wigtown Festival.
When not working amongst The Bookshop’s mile of shelving, Shaun’s hobbies include eavesdropping on customers, uploading book-themed re-workings of Sugarhill Gang songs to YouTube and shooting Amazon Kindles in the wild.
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In a prison in Occupied France one in every ten men is to be shot. The prisoners draw lots among themselves—and for rich lawyer Louis Chavel it seems that his whole life has been leading up to an agonising and crucial failure of nerve. Graham Greene wrote The Tenth Man in 1944, when he was under a two-year contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the manuscript lay forgotten in MGM’s archives until 1983. It was published two years later.
Review
This book originated from a lost manuscript of Greene’s that turned up in an MGM sale. The person who purchased the manuscript returned it to Greene and he turned it into a novel which was published in 1985.
This is a short book but one that really packs a punch. The book begins with a prison in occupied France and the news that every tenth man is to be shot. The prisoners are left to decide amongst themselves who will be shot, so they decide to draw lots. The rich lawyer Louis Chavel’s nerve leaves him and he gives up everything to the man who will take his place.
Janvier is the man who takes Chavel’s place so he leaves all his new wealth to his sister and mother. When Chavel finally leaves the prison he has nothing to his name but he is still drawn to life he once had and so makes his way to his old home where he finds Janvier’s sister and mother.
The book looks at the final years of the Second World War and how even the best of men can change in dire times. It is a story of cowardice, guilt, courage, romance and much more. Those who lie are trusted and those who tell the truth are not believed, everything is turned on its head in this book.
I must admit the ending of the book was not what I expected and came as a big shock but it did show that miracles do happen. I will be honest as much as I love Greene’s books this book did not really enthral me that much as I just did not like the character of Chavel very much so I only give this book 3 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Henry Graham Greene (1904-1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded as one of the leading English novelists of the20th century.
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
Newly widowed and the father of an infant son, Henry VIII realizes he must marry again to insure the royal succession. Now forty-six, overweight and unwell, Henry is soundly rejected by some of Europe’s most eligible princesses, but Anna of Kleve—a small German duchy—is twenty-four and eager to wed. Henry requests Anna’s portrait from his court painter, who enhances her looks, painting her straight-on in order not to emphasize her rather long nose. Henry is entranced by the lovely image, only to be bitterly surprised when Anna arrives in England and he sees her in the flesh. She is pleasant looking, just not the lady that Henry had expected.
Review
I will be honest I was not looking forward to this book as I have always felt really sorry for Anna of Kleve and thought this story would be hard to read. Poor Anna arranged to marry a much older man who is obese, and who hasn’t looked after himself and really does not have the best reputation with his past wives. She must have been terrified when she first met the King.
Anna has led a sheltered life controlled by her mother. She has not been allowed to learn music and her education has been limited because she has only been allowed to learn what is needed for a woman whose duty is to marry and be a good wife. This was always going to be a problem for Henry who liked his women to know music and be educated and then poor Anna could never live up to the portrait that had been painted of her. Henry had fallen in love with the portrait and was disappointed by Anna in real life.
Weir had embellished the story of Anna slightly which I can understand why because of what Henry had supposedly said but I am not sure I was fully onboard with it. I won’t say more as I don’t want to spoil it for you. Weir had made Anna a beautiful character, although she was horrified by Henry to start with she endeavoured to be the best wife she could be and when sadly the marriage was dissolved she endeavoured to be the best friend she could be to Henry and his children.
I loved Anna’s character, she was full of love and kindness and always wanted to do the best she could for everyone although she did have a bit of a wine problem and I will be honest I had a good giggle whenever she was drinking wine in the book. It would be a good drinking game to be honest, every time you read that Anna has a glass of wine you take a sip of your drink. Although Anna is left a good settlement I can’t help but wonder if she was been swindled out of her money.
This book is a beautiful story but it did pull at the heart strings and I did avoid reading it sometimes when I knew what was coming up. Another triumph by Weir but I have only given the book 4 out of 5 Dragons because I did not entirely agree with the one storyline.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you)
About the author
Alison Weir was born in 1951 and is a British writer of history books, and latterly historical novels, mostly in the form of biographies about British Royalty.
The rules are answer the questions below and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you will read next?
Hello!
Another Wednesday has arrived and with it another WWW Wednesday which is fast becoming one of my favourite weekly posts. I love seeing what everyone has been reading each week.
What I am Currently Reading
I only started reading this last night. So far so good!
What I have Recently Finished Reading
Finished this yesterday review will be posted shortly.
What I will Read Next
These are two contenders but I do have a few NetGalley books to read as well so it could be anything.
There is my WWW Wednesday for this week. Please drop me a comment with your WWW Wednesday and I will head over for a visit.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For more info please check out Jana’s blog.
Hello and happy Tuesday!
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is an interesting one for me because as most of you know I’m not great with planning my reading as I am a mood reader. This in mind I have chosen ten books that I really want to read soon and hopefully I will get round to reading them over the summer.
The Lantern Men by Elly Griffiths
The King’s Curse by Philippa Gregory
The King’s Sister by Anne O’Brien
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
The 100 by Kass Morgan
Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession by Alison Weir
Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir
Anna of Kleve: The Princess in the Portrait by Alison Weir
Drop me a comment with your Top Ten Tuesday link or if you have any thoughts on the books I have listed.
Lady Book Dragon 