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!
• 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!

Hello & thank god for the weekend! I was pinged by track and trace last week and had to isolate for 6 days… luckily I tested negative but it did mean that I missed a good portion of the lovely summer weather we had. My only plans this weekend are to watch the rugby (come on Lions) and catch up on some reading, so I’m looking forward to being able to chill out. The book I’m choosing to highlight this week is a recent addition to my TBR, and by an author whose books I have LOVED so far. I don’t know much about this novella tbh but am definitely hooked after the first line:

“Foggy mornings were when Grandpa Jake haunted me most often, sliding between the giant tree trunks and playing hide and seek, the way we had the morning he’d died.”

Sounds creepy right? I’m definitely looking forward to picking this one up, and hopefully I can do it soon.

In 1909, in a California that never was, a creature in a tan frock coat watches Etta from the top of a mountain….

Deep in the old growth redwoods of Northern California, a coven of forest witches guard the trees, the plants, and the creatures who depend on the forest. Etta Erwin is the youngest witch in the Mendocino Coven, born with more earth magic at her core than any witch in over five generations. By tradition, she’s her grandmother’s heir, destined to lead the coven when Milly steps down. None of that explains why a powerful magic user, a stranger, first tries to kill her, and then won’t stop watching her from the mountaintop.

Wyatt John Erwin was born with a sorcerer’s power, but was never trained and most of that power is out of his reach. Etta is the center of his life, and he’s determined to find a way to end the threat, no matter what that takes. But the second time the stranger attacks, he goes after Wyatt too. One of the coven witches who raised Wyatt sends a message to the Russian sorcerer’s colony near Fort Ross, asking for help. Help arrives in the form of Sebastian Stefanovich Sokolov, one of the most powerful sorcerers on the West Coast.

Etta and Wyatt’s life will never be the same. Long buried secrets and betrayals are unearthed, the danger grows, and the true nature of the threat is revealed. There’s love and joy too, lost family found, and a wish fulfilled.

And through both the good and the bad, Etta and Wyatt hold on to each other, and remember the secret is to never let go….