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:
My big brother reaches home in the dark hours before dawn, when even ghosts take their rest. He smells of steel and coal and forge. He smells of the enemy. .
Do you recognize the lines?
Here’s a hint:
It’s a the first book in a YA fantasy series.
Still not sure? Here’s another hint:
It’s written by Sabaa Tahir.
The First Lines Friday book is:
An Ember in the Ashes
About the Book:
Title: An Ember in the Ashes
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Series: An Ember in the Ashes #1
Page Length: 456
Publication Date: April 28, 2015
Synopsis: Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.
There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.
LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon
Have you read An Ember in the Ashes? What do you think of the first lines? I just started buddy reading this with Ali, and I’m loving it!!
I need to read this one. It’s been sitting on my TBR fir a while. Glad you are enjoing it so far.
It’s great! I’m about halfway through an loving it.
The first line drew me in. This sounds good!
It’s soooo good!!
Ooh, this is one series that I’ve been wanting to re-read for a while because I still have to finish the last book but have forgotten so much about what happened beforehand, lol. I hope you and Ali continue enjoying it 😍
That’s how I ended up rereading. I never finished the whole series, and I got to the point I just wanted to reread what I’ve already read before finishing. Plus, this is a book that never gets old!
I’m loving it! It’s a reread for Ali, but a first for me. Sooo good!
This is such a great series! And it’s perfect one to buddy read.
It’s fantastic! I’m about halfway through now. Soooo good!
Such great first lines that are so indicative to how awesome this book is! So happy to be reading it with you, Julie!!
Me too, Ali! It’s such a great read. 🙂