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’ve been on this spirituality, self-help journey for a while now. I’m not sure exactly where Luna’s Twilight Tarot and Healing Arts shop falls on that spectrum of spirituality, but I’m here to embark on the unexpected. Plus, I can’t catch another bus for thirty minutes, and it’s literally two degrees outside.”

This sounds like a really promising start to a story. I’ve been learning tarot for a while now, and this definitely caught my attention.

Do you recognize the lines?

Here’s a hint:

This is an upcoming fantasy romance.

Still not sure? Here’s another hint:

It’s written by Kristin Cast.

The First Lines Friday book is:

The Empress.

About the Book:

• Title: The Empress
• Author: Kristin Cast
• Series:  Towerfall #1
• Page Length: 400 pages
• Publication Date: January 7, 2025
• Publisher: Bloom Books

Synopsis:

He’s a ruthless, battle-scarred warrior with a dark past, and she’s stuck pretending to be his wife to save a fantasy kingdom.

From New York Times bestselling author Kristin Cast comes a new tarot-inspired fantasy series. Scarlett St. Clair meets Outlander in the seductive and spellbinding world of Towerfall, starting with The Empress, a high-heat, fake marriage romantasy with a swoon-worthy, morally-gray love interest.

The Arcana aren’t just figures in a tarot deck―they’re real. Terrifyingly real. That’s what I learned when I found a tarot card in the snow and was yanked from my world and into Towerfall. The first thing the people of this harsh, cruel realm did was try to kill me, and they probably would have succeeded if Kane hadn’t taken me to his hideout in the woods and nursed me back to health.

But I don’t know if I can trust him. He’s too hot to be good news, he’s definitely hiding secrets, and I’ve already seen him kill two people to protect me. If I hadn’t just been helplessly dumped into his world, the scars on his hands and his dark, brooding attitude would have me running in the opposite direction.

But right now, convincing the Kingdom of Pentacles that Kane and I are married is my best chance of getting into the palace, and back to my own world.

Because there’s something wrong with Towerfall. Something deeply, terrifyingly wrong. And if anyone finds out Kane and I aren’t really married?

Well, then both of us are dead.

Links: Goodreads     

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