I’m back, and it’s only been a week since my last First Line Friday post! Yay! A reasonable amount of time!

First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words, but I saw it over at One Book More.

What if instead of judging a book by the cover, author or most everything else, we judged it by its content? Its first lines?

If you want to join in, all you gotta do is:

📚 Take a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open it 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!

Here’re the first lines:

The blade traced a slow line of fire down his face.

He desperately tried to cry out, to jerk away, but the hand over his mouth prevented both. Steel filled his vision, gray and dirty. Warm blood trickled down the left side of his face, onto his neck, under his shirt.

There were only fragments after that.

Laughter. The hot stink of wine on his attacker’s breath. A lessening of the pain, and screams – not his own.

Voices, high-pitched with fear, begging. Then silence. Darkness.

Do you know what book it is? I’ll give you a moment to think about it… (and admire some books)

Annnd the book is 🥁🥁… The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington!

(Were you able to guess it??)

The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington

Series: The Licanius Trilogy (Book #1)

Length: 736 pages

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction

Publisher: Orbit

Release Date: May 9, 2017

Book Description:

A young man with forbidden magic finds himself drawn into an ancient war against a dangerous enemy in book one of the Licanius Trilogy, the series that fans are heralding as the next Wheel of Time. 

As destiny calls, a journey begins. 

It has been twenty years since the godlike Augurs were overthrown and killed. Now, those who once served them — the Gifted — are spared only because they have accepted the rebellion’s Four Tenets, vastly limiting their powers. 

As a Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war lost before he was even born. He and others like him are despised. But when Davian discovers he wields the forbidden power of the Augurs, he and his friends Wirr and Asha set into motion a chain of events that will change everything. 

To the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian’s wakes up in the forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is. . . 

And in the far north, an ancient enemy long thought defeated begins to stir.

Have you read this book? The rest of the trilogy? What did you think of it (them), if you have?

Thank you for reading, and have an awesome day/night!

See ya ~Mar