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FIRST LINE FRIDAY...First lines have always intrigued me since I heard an author say that writing the first sentence is, by far, the most difficult part of writing a novel. The reasoning was that a first sentence can make the reader continue reading or cause the book to be tossed aside. So, go to your To Be Read Pile, choose as many books as you want and share the first line. Be sure to include the title and author so that if your reader also finds it intriguing, they can find the book. Also, share your thoughts about the first line. Does it draw you in? Is it...exciting...thought provoking...scary...funny?



"In two or three hours... well, it's hard to tell...in three hours, surely, or at the very outside, four hours...within four hours, let us say, I'll be dead."

Pale Blue Eye
Louis Bayard

This first line completely demonstrates why I love first lines. Everything about this screams "read on, read on"! I, most certainly, will. With a first line like this, I would be shocked if the novel were anything but fantastic. How does he know about his impending death? How does he feel knowing? I am excited to find out.

My friend, L, recommended it. We are reading Black Tower by the same author for book club and she mentioned what a great read Pale Blue Eye is. She and I share very similar reading taste so I trust her opinion. Louis Bayard puts historical figures in his mysteries. In Pale Blue Eye, a young Edgar Allen Poe, as a West Point cadet, helps solve a gruesome murder. Poe is considered by many to be father of the murder mystery. His novel, Murders in the Rue Morgue, was published in 1841.

The reviews for Pale Blue Eye also attest to how good it is...
"Shockingly clever and devoutly unsentimental...reads like a lost classic. Bayard reinvigorates historical fiction." - New York Times Book Review
"Brilliantly plotted and completely absorbing, ending with the kind of shock that few novelists are able to deliver." - Sunday Times (London)
"Seamlessly blends Poe into an engrossing whodunit worthy of its inspiration." - USA Today
"Another tour-de-force, an intense and gripping novel....This beautifully crafted thriller stands head and shoulders above other recent efforts to fictionalize Poe." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The only place I went to today was Home Depot. We had a "DIY" day around our house. My husband was on the roof for most of the day getting the evaporative cooler up and running. Thus, my trip to the Depot. I carried a purple pebbled leather bag. It is a "organizer" handbag. It has pockets and slots for everything, which I don't use :o)
I just throw things from one bag to the next.