First Lines Friday: 4 September 2026

September 4, 2026 Dini @ dinipandareads6 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:

“Before recording the strange history that follows, I felt I ought to take a look at the house where such a gruesome murder was committed. Accordingly, one afternoon in early spring, I set off, walking stick in hand, for a stroll around that infamous residence.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

First Lines Friday: 28 August 2026

August 28, 2026 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

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:

“I’ve arrived in London without incident.
There are few triumphs in my recent life, but I count this as one. My existence of the last three years, has been nothing but incident.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

First Lines Friday: 21 August 2026

August 21, 2026 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

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:

“Yadriel wasn’t technically trespassing because he’d lived in the cemetery his whole life. But breaking into the church was definitely crossing the moral-ambiguity line.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

First Lines Friday: 7 August 2026

August 7, 2026August 9, 2026 Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

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:

“Cannon fire before breakfast is obscene – and waking up to it is an atrocity.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

First Lines Friday: 31 July 2026

July 31, 2026 Dini @ dinipandareads14 Comments

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:

“The farmer is dead, he is dead and all anyone wants to know is who killed him. Was it an accident or was it murder? It looks like murder, they say, with that gunshot wound to the heart, so precise, it must have been intended.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

First Lines Friday: 17 July 2026

July 17, 2026July 17, 2026 Dini @ dinipandareads5 Comments

Happy Friday, book pandas! I’ve decided to start posting for First Lines Friday again since I now have more free Fridays. I can’t believe the last time that I did this Friday meme was back in 2021—time sure does fly. 🤭 On that note, I’m going to dive straight in.

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:

“The Killorans’ front door changed color depending upon who knocked. Sky blue for a charming acquaintance, heart red for a lover present, past, or future. Clover green for a spiteful enemy, or a rich, jammy plum for an old friend. Mustard yellow for family and, due to a slight inaccuracy with the spellwork, traveling salesmen. The day the Bloodmoons paid a visit, the door turned as black as the bottom of a well.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

First Lines Friday: 10 July 2026

July 10, 2026 Dini @ dinipandareads3 Comments

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:

“Once upon a time when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith. Valentine Michael Smith was as real as taxes but he was a race of one.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

First Lines Friday: 3 July 2026

July 3, 2026 Dini @ dinipandareads5 Comments

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:

“I have hated my mother for most of my life but it is her face I see as I drown.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

#FirstLinesFriday: 3 January 2025

January 3, 2025 Dini @ dinipandareads4 Comments

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:

“A white silence blanketed the land. Newly fallen snow, hushed. Pure, crystalline ice hardening against the pale bark of the trees. The chilled air that swelled with the slow, sleeping breaths of a world that had yet to wake.
And a girl cloaked in heavy furs, waiting.”

#FirstLinesFriday: 20 December 2024

December 20, 2024 Dini @ dinipandareads6 Comments

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:

“Lady Derring had been raised to believe breeding and manners were a bulwark against all of life’s vicissitudes. So as she peered through her black veil at her husband’s solicitor, her spine was straight, her chin was high, and her brow was as smooth as the curve of the Chinese porcelain urn she’d wrested from the hands of the man who had come to take it away this morning.”