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 Weekend! This weeks book is a horror/fantasy by an author whose books I have come to love. Her fantasies are incredibly quirky and longing filled but this is my first time reading a horror and, based on these first lines, it’s going to be equally as strange as her books before.

“There was a vulture on the mailbox at my grandmother’s house.”

Intriguing right?!? Ready to find out what it is?

“Mum seems off.”

Her brother’s words echo in Sam Montgomery’s ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone.

She brushes the thought away as she climbs the front steps. Sam’s excited for this rare extended visit, and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine, watching murder mystery shows, and guessing who the killer is long before the characters figure it out.

But stepping inside, she quickly realises home isn’t what it used to be. Gone is the warm, cluttered charm her mum is known for; now the walls are painted a sterile white. Her mum jumps at the smallest noises and looks over her shoulder even when she’s the only person in the room. And when Sam steps out back to clear her head, she finds a jar of teeth hidden beneath the magazine-worthy rose bushes, and vultures are circling the garden from above.

To find out what’s got her mum so frightened in her own home, Sam will go digging for the truth. But some secrets are better left buried.