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!

Hello! The book I’m choosing to spotlight this week is one absolute chunk of an fantasy. A book by a new to me author, that sounds like it’s going to be epic in all the best ways, and has one incredible first line, that good that I had to physically stop myself from just carrying on reading it right there and then.

” I walked into the tavern in search of the most important thing in the world. A story. And I ended up swept into the most dangerous one of all.”

See! One hell of a first line right? Ready to find out what it is?

All legends are born of truths. And just as much lies. These are mine. Judge me for what you will. But you will hear my story first.

I buried the village of Ampur under a mountain of ice and snow. Then I killed their god. I’ve stolen old magics and been cursed for it. I started a war with those that walked before mankind and lost the princess I loved, and wanted to save. I’ve called lightning and bound fire. I am legend. And I am a monster.

My name is Ari.

And this is the story of how I let loose the first evil.