First Lines Friday 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 Line:
“It begins where it ends: beneath the Yew tree.”
Do you recognize the lines?
Here’s a hint:
It’s a new fantasy.
Still not sure? Here’s another hint:
It’s written by Alix E. Harrow.
The First Lines Friday book is:
The Everlasting
Title: The Everlasting
Author: Alix E. Harrow
Page Length: 320
Pub. Date: Oct. 28, 2025
Publisher: Tor
Synopsis: From Alix E. Harrow, the New York Times bestselling author of Starling House, comes a moving and genre-defying quest about the knight whose legend built a nation, and the cowardly historian sent back through time to make sure she plays her part–even if it breaks his heart.
Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters—but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten.
Centuries later, Owen Mallory—failed soldier, struggling scholar—falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives—and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs.
But that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una’s legend—if they want to tell a different story–they’ll have to rewrite history itself.
LINKS: Amazon | Goodreads | Review
Great choice! I recognized it right away… loved the book!!! And it really is a great first line.