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 Lines:
“The smuggler was, in my not uninformed opinion, certainly a mage. His eyes were too keen in the night, his movements too quiet.”
Do you recognize the lines?
Here’s a hint:
It’s a new historical fantasy.
Still not sure? Here’s another hint:
It’s written by HM Long
The First Lines Friday book is:
Entwined
Title: Entwined
Author: H.M. Long
Pages: 304
Publication Date: March 10, 2026
Publisher: Titan
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Historical / Fantasy
Synopsis: Three sisters join the hunt for a stolen magical artefact in the start of this Gilded Age fantasy duology.
Ottilie Rushforth hides from the mighty Sorcerer’s Guild as secretary to a has-been detective. She is Entwined – threads of magic run beneath her skin, and the Guild would trap her in service.
But Ottilie has a plan to escape the Guild forever with her estranged fiancé, the enigmatic poet, soldier and smuggler Lewis Illing. All she must do is track down a mysterious artefact, claim the bounty, and leave the city forever. But Ottilie’s sisters – Pretoria, a quick-witted sorceress and thief recently emerged from exile, and Madge, a guild mage to the core, appear to make equally unwelcome offers. A new life at the cost of everything she has ever wanted, or prestige and safety in a gilded cage.
With her life on the line, Ottilie must track down the artifact in a city torn apart by prejudice and violence, and choose between the two sides of herself – the fugitive and the Entwined.
LINKS: Goodreads | BookBub | Amazon
Have you read Entwined? What do you think of the first line? Comment below!
Oooh thats a good first line! I have this on my TBR and looking forward to picking it up 🙂
I hope you enjoy it, Becky!!