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:

“A secret is a terrible thing. It starts as a single inhalation, a fragment of bacteria that enters your bloodstream, multiplying immediately or over centuries, a thousand neural networks of secrets emerging from the first. As a family, we were long practiced in the art of secrets, trading one deception for the other through generations, weaving an intricate silk screen that prevented the outside world from knowing who we might turn into. But that night on the terrace, confronted by the body that we had taken life from, I wondered if there would be no hiding this time.

A secret is a terrible thing. Unless there was honor in keeping it.”

These opening lines kind of remind me of the start of Anna Karenina : ‘each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ Also, there is something about books that have hidden secrets as a part of the story that I have a hard time resisting.

Do you recognize the lines?

Here’s a hint:

This is an upcoming literary fiction novel.

Still not sure? Here’s another hint:

It is written by Nayantara Roy.

The First Lines Friday book is:

The Magnificent Ruins by Nayantara Roy.

About the Book:

• Title: The Magnificent Ruins
• Author: Nayantara Roy
• Page Length: 448 pages
• Publication Date: November 11, 2025
• Publisher: Algonquin Books

Synopsis:

Lila De is on the verge of a breakthrough in her career at a New York publishing house when she learns that her grandfather has left the family estate to her. But returning to Kolkata, she realizes that her grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins all resent her sudden inheritance. To make matters more complicated, her first boyfriend seeks her out, and her star author—and occasional lover—is suddenly determined to make things serious. As long suppressed secrets from her family emerge, culminating in an act of violence, Lila finds herself reckoning with her past and present.

Wise, witty, and deeply moving, The Magnificent Ruins is a heartrending story about the complexities of love and the wealth of secrets in one large and magnetic family.

Links: Goodreads     

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