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:
“I used to like being alone. I adored solitude when it meant long walks and curling up on the sofa reading under a faded quilt with a cup of lemon tea.
But over time, solitude built to loneliness, and loneliness?
Loneliness sucks.”
Do you recognize the lines?
Here’s a hint:
It’s a new fantasy release.
Still not sure? Here’s another hint:
It’s written by L.C. Chu.
The First Lines Friday book is:
The Library of Flowers
For centuries, the Hua women have held sway over the courts of emperors and billionaires with their magical perfumes able to stir hearts and ensure fortunes. And in every fifth generation, an eldest daughter is born with the rarest gift of all: the ability to summon true love.
As a long-awaited fifth daughter, Lucy was supposed to be the miracle her exacting mother had been waiting for. But when her magic failed, Lucy fled Vancouver, her legacy, and the expectations that had nearly broken her. Now, years later, she runs a tiny perfume shop tucked away in Toronto’s Kensington Market—crafting beautiful, perfectly ordinary scents and keeping her extraordinary past firmly behind her. That is, until a death in the family brings her home…and saddles her with an unwelcome inheritance: the centuries-old Hua family register, brimming with secrets, formulas, and forgotten truths.
As Lucy unravels the stories of the women who came before her—including the mother whose complicated heart she never could understand—she must confront the tangled threads of love, power, and identity…and ask herself whether her magic was ever truly gone, or simply waiting for her to decide for herself what it means to be a daughter of the House of Hua.
LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub | Bookshop.org
Have you read The Library of Flowers? What do you think of the first lines? Comment below!
