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?
The Rules:
- 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!
First Lines:
“I remember watching a man being hanged once. It was in a small town, ten miles north of Leyenswald, and all I could think about was how cruel it was to be executed on such a warm and pleasant summer’s morning.”
Well, that seems like an ominous start to a story, but I’m certainly intrigued…
Do you recognize the lines?
Here’s a hint:
It’s a new fantasy novel.
Still not sure? Here’s another hint:
It’s written by Richard Swan.
The First Lines Friday book is:
The Trials of Empire.
About the Book:
Title: The Trials of Empire
Author: Richard Swan
Series: Empire of the Wolf #3
Page Length: 496 pages
Publication Date: February 6, 2024
Publisher: Orbit
Synopsis:
The third novel in an epic fantasy trilogy, which follows the tale of Sir Konrad Vonvalt, an Emperor’s Justice – a detective, judge and executioner all in one.
THE TIME OF JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND
The Empire of the Wolf is on its knees, but there’s life in the great beast yet.
To save it, Sir Konrad Vonvalt and Helena must look beyond its borders for allies – to the wolfmen of the southern plains, and the pagan clans in the north. But old grievances run deep, and both factions would benefit from the fall of Sova.
Even these allies might not be enough. Their enemy, the zealot Bartholomew Claver, wields infernal powers bestowed on him by a mysterious demonic patron. If Vonvalt and Helena are to stand against him, they will need friends on both sides of the mortal plane—but such allegiances carry a heavy price.
As the battlelines are drawn in both Sova and the afterlife, the final reckoning draws close. Here, at the beating heart of the Empire, the two-headed wolf will be reborn in a blaze of justice . . . or crushed beneath the shadow of tyranny.
Links: Goodreads
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Categories: First Lines Friday
Leah's Books 
I love the idea. Definitely gets rid of all the biases when it comes to picking books
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Right? Just basing our judgment of a book on the quality of the first few lines. I do it with new songs, so it makes sense to me.
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