Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, 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? Here are the rules:

• 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!

First lines:

“We came to Birchwood Manor because Edward said that it was haunted. It wasn’t, not then, but it’s a dull man who lets truth stand in the way of a good story, and Edward was never that.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

*drumroll please!*

My real name, no one remembers. The truth about that summer, no one else knows.

In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.

Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?

I can’t remember where or when I first saw The Clockmaker’s Daughter mentioned (it might’ve been bookstagram) but I scooped it up at the store when I saw it on sale towards the end of last year (I think!). Sadly, it’s been sitting on my shelf untouched ever since. 😅 I see its got some fairly mixed reviews on Goodreads so I’m not sure how to feel about it, but this is the first time I took a look inside the book, and after reading the prologue my interest has been piqued again!

Have you read The Clockmaker’s Daughter or it on your TBR?