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:

“The last thing Evelyn Schwartz could remember was the carolers.

She had been standing on set at CBS7-T studios, her tablet in hand, watching a chorus of festive Victorian revelers sweep across a stage, capes and long skirts billowing out around them. Stage Design had just finished painting the green trim for the windowpane marked Scrooge & Marley when she noticed that something went wrong.

Caroler number eighteen was missing.”

While things don’t seem to be going well for Evelyn Schwartz, the book is off to a fantastic start for me. I’m so curious about what happens next, and hopefully I’ve sparked your interest too!

Do you recognize the lines?

Here’s a hint:

This is a romance novel.

Still not sure? Here’s another hint:

It is written by Jean Meltzer, reigning queen of Jewish holiday romance.*

*This title is completely bestowed by the blogger, and your opinion may differ.

The First Lines Friday book is:

The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah.

About the Book:

• Title: The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah
• Author: Jean Meltzer
• Page Length: 368 pages
• Publication Date: October 21, 2025
• Publisher: MIRA

Synopsis:

Can these exes rekindle their love this Hanukkah?

Evelyn Schwartz has the perfect Hanukkah planned: eight jam-packed days producing the live-action televised musical of A Christmas Carol. Who needs family when you’ve got long hours, impossible deadlines, and your dream job? That is, until an accident on set lands her in the medical bay with one of her chronic migraines, and she’s shocked to find her ex-husband, David Adler, filling in for the usual studio doctor.

It’s been two years since David walked away from Evelyn and their life in Manhattan, and his ex-wife is still the same workaholic who puts her career before everything else—especially her health. But when Evelyn begins hallucinating “ghosts” tied to her past heartbreaks, and every single one leads to David, he finds himself spending much more time with her than he anticipated. And denying the still-smoldering chemistry between them becomes impossible.

As Evelyn revisits her ghosts of Hanukkah past, she and David both begin to wonder if they can have a Hanukkah future. But with a high-stakes production ramping up the pressure on Evelyn, and troublesome spirits forcing them both to confront their most difficult shared memories, it might just take a Hanukkah miracle for these two exes to light the flame on their second-chance at love.

Links: Goodreads     

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