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:

“It was seven in the evening, and Clara Sender was already considering murder.”

This absolutely sounds like my kind of book. I need to learn more about Clara and why she’s considering murder.

Do you recognize the lines?

Here’s a hint:

This is an upcoming Jewish fantasy.

Still not sure? Here’s another hint:

It’s written by debut author A.R. Vishny.

The First Lines Friday book is:

Night Owls.

About the Book:

• Title: Night Owls
• Author: A.R. Vishny
• Page Length: 368 pages
• Publication Date: September 17, 2024
• Publisher: HarperCollins

Synopsis:

In this thrilling paranormal YA romance debut steeped in folklore, two estries—owl-shifting female vampires from Jewish tradition—face New York’s monstrous underworld to save the girl one of them loves with help from the boy one of them fears before they are, all of them, lost forever.

Clara loves rules. Rules are what have kept her and her sister, Molly, alive—or, rather, undead—for over a century. Work their historic movie theater by day. Shift into an owl under the cover of night. Feed on men in secret. And never fall in love.

Molly is in love. And she’s tired of keeping her girlfriend, Anat, a secret. If Clara won’t agree to bend their rules a little, then she will bend them herself.

Boaz is cursed. He can’t walk two city blocks without being cornered by something undead. At least at work at the theater, he gets to flirt with Clara, wishing she would like him back.

When Anat vanishes, and New York’s monstrous underworld emerges from the shadows, Clara suspects Boaz, their annoyingly cute box office attendant, might be behind it all.

But if they are to find Anat, they will need to work together to face demons and the hungers they would sooner bury. Clara will have to break all her rules—of love, of life, and of death itself—before her rules break everyone she loves.

In this standalone debut, A. R. Vishny interweaves mystery, romance, and lore to create an unputdownable story about those who have kept to the shadows for far too long.

Links: Goodreads     

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