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:
Someone important must have been killed in the night.
Priya was sure of it the minute she heard the thud of hooves on the road behind her. She stepped to the roadside as a group of guards clad in Parijati white and gold raced past her on their horses, their sabers clinking against their embossed belts. She drew her pallu over her face-partly because they would expect such a gesture of respect from a common woman, and partly to avoid the risk that one of them would recognize her-and watched them through a gap between her fingers and the cloth.
Do you recognize the lines?
Hint: It’s the first book in a new series.
Still not sure? Here’s another hint:
It’s written by Tasha Suri
The First Lines Friday book is:
The Jasmine Throne
About the Book:
Series: Burning Kingdoms #1
Page Length: 480
Publisher: Orbit
Synopsis: Author of Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash Tasha Suri’s The Jasmine Throne, beginning a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India, in which a captive princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess’s traitor brother.
Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters — but is now little more than a decaying ruin.
Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.
But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.
LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository
Are you excited to read this one? What do you think of the first lines? Comment below!
I want to read this so bad. Lol. Great first line(s).
Lol – I hope you get to read it soon!!
Sounds intriguing! Glad to have it on my radar!
It’s fantastic!
Nice, I didn’t know it but I definitely want to read this!
It’s so good!!
The first lines are definitely captivating!