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:

“Just before I knock on the door of the small brick house, I’m gripped by the skin-tingling sense I’m being watched.

But when I twist my head around, the only thing I see is a neglected stretch of yard. It must have been pretty once. The bones are there—brittle rosebushes lining the worn picket fence, gardens overrun by weeds, a graceful sugar maple tree being chocked by vines.”

The author has managed to convey a very atmospheric setting in just a few sentences, and I already want to read more.

Do you recognize the lines?

Here’s a hint:

This is a mystery thriller from a well-known author in the genre.

Still not sure? Here’s another hint:

It is written by Sarah Pekkanen.

The First Lines Friday book is:

The Women in White by Sarah Pekkanen.

About the Book:

• Title: The Women in White
• Author: Sarah Pekkanen
• Page Length: 304 pages
• Publication Date: August 4, 2026
• Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Synopsis:

In the new thriller from #1 New York Times Bestseller Sarah Pekkanen, a young divorcee accepts a caretaker job for an elderly widow and is drawn into a decades-old mystery of four college girls who vanished after volunteering for parapsychology experiments.

When Riley Bell lands a caretaker job for Betty Sadler, she imagines quiet afternoons of tea and card games – and a chance to heal from her shattering divorce. Instead, she steps into a house that feels suspended in time, with every lampshade, cocktail coupe and record album exactly as it was in 1964. No television. No microwave. And Betty has never even heard of a cell phone.

For Betty, there’s only one thing left she wants in To locate her three best friends who seemingly disappeared after they all volunteered for mysterious experiments in their college’s psychology department. No clues, no contact, just an unanswered mystery that has shadowed Betty for six decades.

Inspired by the real-life research once conducted at Duke University’s Parapsychology Laboratory, The Women In White is told in dual timelines- Betty’s sparkling world of pep rallies and 5 o’clock martinis, and Riley’s present-day search through hidden files into dark corners.

Because whatever was swirling around these four exceptional young women is rising from its long-dormant state. Someone is resurrecting the old experiments, like a copy-cat serial killer. And Riley’s efforts to get answers about the lost girls from the 1960s is putting her on a collision course with the person determined to finish the job.

Links: Goodreads     

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