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 & Happy Friday! I hope you’ve all had a great week. I’m so happy it’s Easter weekend because it means four days off work AND I’m going to watch The Bodyguard the musical on Saturday night! The book I’ve chosen to spotlight this week is a previous self-published title that has been picked up by a trad publisher. It’s a fantasy romance filled with magic and enemies to lovers.

“Between the blood on her hands and the beer on her cloak, it was shaping up to be a horrible evening.”

Now this sounds like my kinda character! Ready to find out what the book is?

Has she been sent to save the realm or destroy it?As Spymaster to the Queen, Aya’s blood oath ensures she protects those she fights alongside – including Will, the Queen’s Enforcer and Aya’s bitter rival.When rumors of dark magic rise in a nearby kingdom, both are sent to investigate.But when Aya’s power acts beyond her gods-given affinity, she risks being turned into a weapon in a war she doesn’t know how to win.And when her relationship with Will unexpectedly shifts, neither knows the danger that will follow . . .