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!

Happy Friday! I hope you’ve all had a lovely week. The book I’ve chosen to spotlight this week is by a new to me author, and it a sapphic fantasy about a magical detective venturing into Chicago’s monstrous underbelly to secure a future for herself and the woman she loves. It sounds amazing & has a great first line.

“Marlowe had offered me fifty dollars to stand out here in the freezing Chicago cold and do an augury, and like a damn greedy fool, I’d said yes.”

I’m definitely intrigued! Ready to find out what it is?

An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother’s life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can’t resist―the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves.

To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago’s most notorious serial killer. If she fails, only hell and heartbreak await.