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:

“Well a day! My fingers are black with ink and my head aches as if it is about to burst at the seams like an over-stuffed flour sack, but this treatise is at least ended. I lean back from my labour and I draw breath, as God Himself did on the seventh day. His work was great and mine is small, but all makings of the mind and heart are sacred and this that you hold — good or bad as you may account it — is no exception.”

Hmm, I’m already antsy to read this, but now I’m so incredibly curious about the treatise itself!

Do you recognize the lines?

Here’s a hint:

This is an upcoming fantasy/horror novel.

Still not sure? Here’s another hint:

It’s written by M.R. Carey.

The First Lines Friday book is:

Once Was Willem.

About the Book:

• Title: Once Was Willem
• Author: M.R. Carey
• Page Length: 296 pages
• Publication Date: March 4, 2025
• Publisher: Orbit

Synopsis:

From the bestselling author M. R. Carey comes an utterly unique and enchantingly dark epic fantasy fable like no other.

This is the tale of Once Was Willem, who – eleven hundred and some years after the death of Christ, in the kingdom that had but recently begun to call itself England – rose from the dead to defeat a great evil facing the humble village of Cosham.

Pennick for all its beauty was ever a place with a dark reputation. The forests of the Chase were said to be home to nixies and boggarts, and there was a common belief, passed down through many generations, that the castle housed an unquiet ghost of terrible and malign power. These rumours I can attest were all true; indeed they fell short of the truth by a long way . . .

Links: Goodreads     

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