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’s worse when they come at night.’

It sounds like a line from a horror movie, but the woman who says those words to me wasn’t trying to be ominous or cryptic. If anything, she was very matter-of-fact, talking about the destructive forces that have, over the past few decades, maimed and murdered, stolen and smashed, the same way someone might tell a visitor not to try to turn left at that one light, or that the Walmart one town over is actually better.”

Well if this didn’t catch my attention, I’ll eat my hat. What exactly is being discussed? Aliens? Robbers? Serial killers? Rabid animals? My mind would have gone to these places if I didn’t know the title and what the book is about.

Do you recognize the lines?

Here’s a hint:

This is a mystery/thriller.

Still not sure? Here’s another hint:

It is written by Rachel Hawkins.

The First Lines Friday book is:

The Storm by Rachel Hawkins.

About the Book:

• Title: The Storm
• Author: Rachel Hawkins
• Page Length: 268 pages
• Publication Date: January 6, 2026
• Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Synopsis:

St. Medard’s Bay, Alabama is famous for three things: the deadly hurricanes that regularly sweep into town, the Rosalie Inn, a century-old hotel that’s survived every one of those storms, and Lo Bailey, the local girl infamously accused of the murder of her lover, political scion Landon Fitzroy, during Hurricane Marie in 1984.

When Geneva Corliss, the current owner of the Rosalie Inn, hears a writer is coming to town to research the crime that put St. Medard’s Bay on the map, she’s less interested in solving a whodunnit than in how a successful true crime book might help the struggling inn’s bottom line. But to her surprise, August Fletcher doesn’t come to St. Medard’s Bay alone. With him is none other than Lo Bailey herself. Lo says she’s returned to her hometown to clear her name once and for all, but the closer Geneva gets to both Lo and August, the more she wonders if Lo is actually back to settle old scores.

As the summer heats up and another monster storm begins twisting its way towards St. Medard’s Bay, Geneva learns that some people can be just as destructive—and as deadly—as any hurricane, and that the truth of what happened to Landon Fitzroy may not be the only secret Lo is keeping…

Links: Goodreads     

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