Happy Friday, everybody! It’s been a few weeks.
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’s the first line:
Now that all my feyness is coming in, I think I oughta get involved in the family business, even if I gotta eavesdrop to do it.
Any ideas on what book it is? If you don’t, here’s another hint or two…
Still don’t know? Here are some awesome pictures of books to admire while you consider it a bit longer…
Annnd the book is… 🥁🥁 Bad in the Blood by Matteo L. Cerilli!
(Didja guess it?)
Bad in the Blood by Matteo L. Cerilli
LENGTH: 392 pages
GENRES: Fantasy, Young Adult, LGBT+, Fiction
PUBLISHER: Tundra Books
RELEASE DATE: 2 September 2025
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
In a world where magical beings, fey, are mistrusted and often institutionalized, a human brother and fey sister must team up to solve a bizarre murder in this 1920s-inspired queer teen fantasy novel.
In the city of Puck’s Port, where motorized vehicles fill the streets and new technological marvels abound, something rotten is lurking under the surface. A violent murder at the docks seems to point to a fey killer, igniting a powder keg of distrust between the city’s humans and its fey inhabitants — folks who wield wonderful but often uncontrollable magical power.
Gristle Senan Maxim Junior finds himself caught in the middle. Forced into the reluctant role of private investigator, like his late father, he’s working to solve the mystery of this fiery murder… mainly because his sister, Hawthorne Stregoni, is a fey herself with an unfortunate penchant for setting things ablaze.
Hawthorne is part of an experimental study to control feyism but struggles to keep her powerful magic in check in a country that hates what she is. Can she and Gristle work together to find the true instigator of the murder before it’s too late?
What books have you been reading lately? What’s on your TBR that you’re currently the most excited about?
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you have an awesome day/night!
See ya ~Mar