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!
First Lines:
When Karolje became king, he ordered rooms in the library to be mortared shut. Sometimes Anza imagined the insides of the rooms, dark, the books and papers ravaged by mice, the furniture and floors thick with dust of those twelve years. Karolje had expelled most of the masters and locked nearly all the buildings.
Do you recognize the lines?
Hint: It’s a newly released YA fantasy.
Still not sure? Here’s another hint: The author is Lisbeth Campbell.
The First Lines Friday Book Is:
The Vanished Queen by Lisbeth Campbell
Page Length: 496
Publication Date: Aug. 18, 2020
Publisher: Gallery/Saga Press
Synopsis: When a country is held in thrall to a vicious, despotic king, it’s up to one woman to take him down.
Long ago, Queen Mirantha vanished. King Karolje claimed it was an assassination by a neighboring king, but everyone knew it was a lie. He had Disappeared her himself.
But after finding the missing queen’s diary, Anza—impassioned by her father’s unjust execution and inspired by Mirantha’s words—joins the resistance group to overthrow the king. When an encounter with Prince Esvar thrusts her into a dangerous game of court politics, one misstep could lead to a fate worse than death.
Esvar is the second son to an evil king. Trapped under his thumb and desperate for a way out, a chance meeting with Anza gives him the opportunity to join the resistance. Together, they might have the leverage to move against the king—but if they fail, their deaths could mean a total loss of freedom for generations to follow.
Set in a world where resistance is as dangerous as it is important, The Vanished Queen is a tale of the courage and sacrifice it requires to take on a tyrant.
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LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository
Have you read The Vanished Queen yet? What do you think of the first lines? Comment below!
