First Lines Friday / General Books

#FirstLinesFriday: 2 June 2023

Dini @ dinipandareads11 Comments

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:

“It was a harrowing climb to the high school. Eight hundred and twenty-one steps. Mamoru had counted one time on his way up—no easy feat while focusing on not toppling off the side of a mountain.”

Do you recognise the book these first lines come from?

*drumroll please!*

The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

A mother struggling to repress her violent past,
A son struggling to grasp his violent future,
A father blind to the danger that threatens them all.

📖 SYNOPSIS

When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?

High on a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire’s enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name ‘The Sword of Kaigen.’

Born into Kusanagi’s legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family’s fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen’s alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.

Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.

Have you read The Sword of Kaigen or is it on your TBR?

11 thoughts on “#FirstLinesFriday: 2 June 2023”

  1. I feel like I’ve seen this book around before, but I never knew what it was about. It sounds really fascinating, and those first lines definitely have me intrigued. It sounds like a terrifying hike to school. lol. I think I definitely would have fallen off the mountain before reaching the top.

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    • Haha, I know I definitely would’ve fallen off the mountain reaching the top 😂 I’ve heard a lot of good things about this one although its been a minute since I’ve seen it circulating on the blogosphere. I’ve had it on my TBR for too long, need to pick it up soon!

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