Wow. So it’s, uh, been about a month. Whoops?
Anyway, I’m back to participating in this post… mostly weekly? Hopefully.
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 are the first lines:
The smell of wilting flowers and spent candles almost masked the odor of decay. Raef pressed against a statue and fought to keep from trem- bling as the knight with the flaming sword paced nearer.
Any ideas? Here’s another hint or two, just in case…

Still no ideas? Here’s some awesome book pics to look at whilst you consider…




Annnd the book is 🥁🥁… Dark Moon, Shallow Sea by David R. Slayton!!
(Were you able to guess it?)

Dark Moon, Shallow Sea by David R. Slayton
SERIES: The Gods of Night and Day (Book #1)
LENGTH: 394 pages
GENRES: Fantasy, LGBTQIA+, Fiction
PUBLISHER: Blackstone Publishing
RELEASE DATE: 31 October 2023
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The first in a new epic fantasy series from David R. Slayton—author of White Trash Warlock – Dark Moon, Shallow Sea is a powerful story of divine betrayal, ghosts, and self-discovery, perfect for fans of the Dark Souls series or Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.
When Phoebe, goddess of the moon, is killed by the knights of the sun god, Hyperion, all who follow her are branded heretics. With Phoebe gone, the souls of the dead are no longer ferried to the underworld, and instead linger on as shades who feast on the blood of the living.
Raef is a child of the night. He lives in the shadows, on scraps, eking out a meager existence as a thief. But when an ornate box is sequestered in the Temple of Hyperion, the chance of a big score proves too great to resist. What he finds within propels him on an odyssey across the sea and back again, altering the course of his life forever.
Seth is a knight of the sun. But unlike the others of his order, the fire of Hyperion only brings him pain. He believes he deserves this penance, exacted for his unknown origins. Tasked with recovering the contents of the box, Seth must also venture beyond the horizon if he’s to learn the truth about himself.
In a dying world divided by the greed of those in power, Raef and Seth find their destinies intertwined—and learn they might have more in common than they ever imagined.
What books have you been reading lately? What’s on your TBR that you’re most excited about?
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!
See ya ~Mar