Writers in the Storm

A blog about writing

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May 1, 2013

Love at first line: Opening sentences that grab

It’s your first sentence. The opening line to your masterpiece. The words that will grab your reader and pull him into your world. They. Have. To. Be. Perfect. No pressure.

We’re not here to give you a lesson in writing the opening hook. But it is May 1st and we thought that was the perfect opportunity to celebrate some firsts.

So, we’re posting the first lines of some of our books. And we invite you, our amazing WITS readers, to post yours. One line. That’s it. But do include the title please. And please limit to three.

Laura Drake

The Sweet Spot - release date, May 28, 2013.
The grief counselor told the group to be grateful for what they had left. After lots of considering, Charla Rae decided she was grateful for the bull semen.

Sweet on You - release date, May 2014
Another night of blood and adrenaline.

Her Road Home - releasing August, 2013
Running away from home at twenty-eight -- that’s gotta be a first.

Fae Rowen

PRISM
O’Neill knew exactly when the glorious Prism sunset became her enemy.

Keeping Athena
Athena WARme stared out her singleship’s viewport at the enemy fighters racing toward her squadron.

The Promised One
Weapons at hand, the three unsuspecting men slumbered around glowing embers.

Sharla Rae

How To Fell A Timberman
“Whiskey Spit?” Noelle Bridger stared at the tall, middle-aged Norwegian standing beside her on the deck of the small mail packet, Excelsior. Ole Gjerset had met her in Seattle to escort her to her new teaching position in Seabeck. Or so she’d thought.

Jenny Hansen

Risky Baby Business (high-risk pregnancy memoir)
I freaking hate menopause.

Untitled  mom book
The story of my birth began in a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Virginia during my father’s birthday celebration.

Orly Konig-Lopez

Your Life, My Way (current WIP)
I thought her life was utterly perfect until she hired me to rewrite it.

The Day The Merry-Go-Round Stopped
I used to be normal. Sometimes I think I still am. Although perhaps not so much on the days I talk to inanimate objects.

Okay, your turn. Post the opening hook, along with title of up to three of your books.

170 comments on “Love at first line: Opening sentences that grab”

  1. Bound and Broken (currently in final edit)
    "For the second time in three days, Celeste Murphy pretended the plaster pieces that fell on her face were snowflakes."

  2. Dana Myles
    Let There Be Life, "Some folks believe life begins when the sperm enters the egg and the cells start to divide."

    Hello Diva, "What the **** did you do to your hair?"

    Breaking Point, "Patient suffered a breakdown of sorts two days ago."

    Oh wow...these aren't very engaging at all. LOL. I've got some work to do on this next one for sure (because of course, these lines are from books I've already committed to print. *begins chanting, 'just keep writing, just keep writing'*) 😉

    Great post and some equally great opening lines.

  3. Whirlwind
    Amos Tillinghast, owner and captain of the slave ship Northern Star, stood over the dying Caribe wench crumpled on his foredeck.

    Fireheart
    "I want them dead by the next full moon - especially her."

    Immortal Blood
    The Pharaoh Akhenaten, trembling, faced the gods in the Hall of Two Truths and waited for judgement.

  4. Eli Rising (WIP):
    I knew she meant to kill me, in the endless moment before her pickup T-boned my Honda Accord.

    The Book of James (WIP):
    After the war, when the undead were at last truly dead, I thought our world had calmed to the shape and color of happily ever after. I was wrong.

    1. Mary, when can I read your Book of James? It's got so much promise and depth.

        1. oh, my. The Book of James is the second of a series, and I'm gratified to have hooked you with my tentative opening line! It's a work in progress, and someday before I hit the nursing home, it will be out. (!!) -- The first few sections of Eli Rising are currently being critiqued in an online writing group (I would put a link here, but I'm not sure if that's okay). Maybe I'd better re-think Eli's opening line! --thanks for the kind words!

  5. from Through the Fog (my only published fiction)
    I looked up at the two pairs of dress shoes, and I wondered.

    from anodyne (a WIP)
    "You know how newspapers are struggling these days. The internet is killing us."
    "Uh huh."
    "I wish things were different; really I do."
    "Uh huh. Maybe you could different me over to the new internet department we just opened."
    "Don't be like that, Jake."

    from an untitled coming of age novel which will probably take me the rest of my life to finish:
    When he first realized that no one else heard the music, he went to his room, sat on the bed, and stared at the closet door. It had never occurred to him that he was a freak, walking around with this noise in his head all the time.

  6. The Ruth Valley Missing
    I never made a habit of waking up to the feel of unfamiliar sheets, but as I rubbed my legs against the rough fabric, I was both disconcerted and comforted.

    Untitled NA/YA WIP
    I shifted in my seat, anxious to escape the smell of perfume and old tuna fish. What kind of person eats tuna in a tiny, shared office?

    Quick Fic (the latest serial fiction series on my blog)
    Little bits of sand littered the scratches on my knees, catching the light from the street lamp as I reexamined the wound.

  7. The Dazzling Darkness (just released April 25 on Amazon)
    Elias Hatch is an old soul who spends each day trusting the dead.

    Night Sea Journey, A Tale of the Supernatural
    The owl rises. A wrinkled blue spreads across the Atlantic. Above the brooding waves, winds blow to leave ancient face prints against the salt-caked windows in the house by the sea.

    [Note, I happen to really like Jenny's "I freaking hate menopause," and Lara's "I want them dead ..." I think there is something about the first sentences that use the "I" message. Immediate catch.]

  8. Covet (a WIP)
    "He's going to love you."

    Rowena's Key (Book I, Golden Key Chronicles)
    What in the name of ZEUS ever possessed her to buy such an ghastly armoire?

    Caedmon's Curse (Book II, Golden Key Chronicles)
    Standing atop the wide, stone parapet, Rowena closed her eyes and tilted her face to the warm rays of the late summer sun. Helios, they called him, but to her the sun was simply the sun.

  9. Accident - released as e-publication March 2013, print editions coming in August 2013
    She was fifteen years old and alone.

    Avenge - WIP
    Dat,dat,dat dat .. . . dat,dat,dat,dat,dat, Adele Warren jerked awake from the sound of gunfire. (BTW - I would love another description for the sound of gunfire. Don't like pow or bang either.

    1. Nice! As for the gunfire, maybe don't try to mimick the sound but use a comparison instead. Firecracker pops. The staccato hammering beat of gunfire. That kind of thing. 🙂

    2. Work with your action language/wording and punctuation to prefect that gunfire. break it up into a few sentences or sharp frags. Make your reader feel it too. Just a thought. Harlen Coben, robert Craig and Steven White and Tana French usually do a good job of this.

  10. Wow, it's going to be a busy day, with this many comments at 5 am! You guys SO rock! I can't wait to read them all!

    It occurs to me as I read just the first lines (how often do you get to do that?!) How much we make a promise to the reader with that first line. Tone, genre, tension.

    I'm going to remember that! Keep 'em coming, people!

  11. Love this idea and the sample openings. These are one old draft and two WIP:

    Sunset Park

    Sunset Park is where the kids grew up. Had they grown up in small towns or villages with funny sounding names like their parents, they might have known they came from the wrong side of the tracks. The families in the surrounding neighborhoods knew.

    Once More Around the Block

    I was certain something lethal was about to hurl through space and split me in two. As it turned out, Ben didn't need a ballistic missile or a grenade launcher, he only needed a piece of notepaper.

    Cut Down to Size

    It was twenty minutes past noon, mid-town was teaming with human and vehicular traffic, and I was headed for the D Train to Coney Island, Brooklyn, at the wrong time of day.

  12. Firstborn
    Pale blue eyes gave one last flash of rage before yielding to terror so sweet its raw power flushed his bulky frame with fiery sunbursts that sizzled through every pulsing nerve.

    Alias Thomas A. Katt
    I hate water, holy or not.

    Work in Progress -- Fantasy thriller
    Of course, she knew he wasn’t a ghost.

      1. You are too kind, Laura. But give me a few months and you will. Been trying to get into her classes. I've heard many good things about her classes.

  13. I love this! So many great beginnings here. 🙂

    Haedyn's Choice - releases May 15th.
    The concrete cell reeked with a mixture of rotten trash, burning flesh, and the sweet tanginess of blood.

  14. From "Til Death" (MuseItUp Publishing, July 2013)
    One of the downsides to living in the digital age, as opposed to the forties, is the fact that a laptop and cell phone can do everything a secretary can—except make coffee, fill out a skirt, and screen clients.

    From "Between the Lines" (Story 3, WIP)
    Saying my phone rang at a quarter past eight does a huge injustice to the deep, bari-sax growl I have for a ringtone, but it takes less explaining.

  15. Fun post. I loved reading everyone's first lines. Here's mine.

    From The Green-Eyed Doll:
    Leave it to Mama to die in the middle of the hottest Texas summer on record.

    From The Last Execution:
    Pulling the trigger was like making love.

    No Time To Kill (WIP):
    With a shake of his boot, Ty Castillo flicked a tarantula larger than his hand to the jungle floor.

  16. LOVE the beginning lines of the WITS guru's.

    I still laugh when I read the bull semen comment, Laura. And, Jenny? I should have known you'd have a killer short-and-simple tease.

    FWIW, here are my two:

    ALL INN.-- Contemporary ST Romance WIP (Steam and Comedy identity crisis)

    MOLLY O’MALLEY slipped into the casino hotel’s elevator before Salvador-the-Debt-Dude saw her, braced for the forty-seven floor claustrophobic ascent to kiss a high-rollers a$$, and rearranged silicon boob-lift-bags to recover perky perfection.

    WHIMSICAL BEGINNINGS (Working Title for MG Light Fantasy series rewrite)

    At precisely eleven a.m. on October 31st, eleven days before Michelle “Mitch” Madison’s eleventh birthday, her imaginary world met the reality of Leprechauns.

    1. "Met" or collided with those leprechauns, Gloria? Sounds like a heck of a thing to happen to a kid. Oh, yeah, that's what makes the best books! (Can you day Harry Potter?)
      -Fae

      1. Ooooh! LOVE the collided with power punch, Fae. Thanks!

        Tthe first line(s) for ALL INN (which I actually like better) broke all the rules. TELL vs. SHOW. Sentence frags, or the dreaded em dash. It passed The Margie Lawson cadence test, but I kept getting challenged by crit partners on Show v Tell. The line? If you insist...

        Molly O'Malley was a fugitive, a fraud and a fake. A perky, clever, genuine fake.

        Me thinks the new version doth run on overmuch. Forsooth.

  17. Great first lines & hooks. Lots of books to check out. Amazon wish list growing.....

    Mine are unpublished - mystery/crime genre. At revision stages:

    Spiral of Hooves (with US ebook publisher's editors)
    The chair spun across the floor as Lina Jardero stood, her hand punctuating the air fusing artist’s brush and assassin’s sword.

    The Last Leaf (Novella - draft 1; NaNoWriMo 2011)
    The sunbeams woke Oliver Skaptaran from the tired nightmare that refused to leave him.

    Wyrm Bait (3rd revision with editor & beta readers)
    The webs buried the decaying body and carpeted the poison ivy in a silken masterpiece that enthralled Accalia.

    Fates Maelstrom (Draft 1)
    Their eyes stared at Twyla without emotion, and followed every move that she made up or down the stairs.

    Wyrm Blood (Draft 1 - sequel to Wyrm Bait; NaNoWriMo 2012)
    Beneath the snow lay the enchantress, the red from the eight hearts bleeding into the whiteness.

    1. Mystery/crime genre hardly does justice to the death and destruction that appears ready to explode from the pages after these first lines, Roland! Looks like you've got some sci fi/paranormal elements as well.
      -Fae

      1. Paranormal in some, in sense that couple of characters are psychic. Fantasy, rather than sci-fi, in that two are set against fantasy gaming world. Enchantress might not be what she seems!! And yet started by writing fantasy so........

  18. Wow -- a LOT of awesome opening lines here! 😀

    From Retribution (my current WIP):
    The tantalizing pop of a semiautomatic was one of the greatest sounds in a world overrun by zombies. No, the greatest sound. Period.

  19. I love "first line" posts! Some of the first lines here are absolutely captivating. Tossing mine out to the flurry of replies...

    Just Let Go (pre-submission edits):
    On our wedding day, my fiancé arrived at the church in a casket.

    Stay With Me (WIP):
    Your life doesn’t flash before your eyes when you are about to die. Instead, time stalls and every memory crawls by, each one a sucker punch of regrets.

    Ta-da!
    Thanks for a fun post WITS!
    Kerry

      1. Thank you, Bob! At the risk of sounding cliché, I will shout the publication date from the rooftops. My agent and I are polishing the MS for submission. Can't wait!

    1. Kerry, I agree with Bob. My friend and Olivia are discussing the possibilities of the casket right now at Starbucks as we work on our own projects. Personally, I'm hoping for vampire, not death. But one does not necessarily preclude the other...

      Can't wait to read it!

      1. Thanks Lara! Ooouu, a discussion. Glad the 1st line is so intriguing. Though there are no vampires in Just Let Go. It's women's fiction with romantic and "mystery-lite" elements, along with a sprinkle of paranormal. Stay With Me is also women's fiction with romantic and "mystery-lite" elements, plus magical realism.

        1. Kerry, you've made your book even more intriguing. I so can't wait for it!

  20. What great lines.
    Here's mine from my WF I'm Haunting Me - WIP

    The last night of my old life was spent drinking martinis with my girlfriends.

  21. Oh, man, this is a fabulous idea for a post! Bull semen, yep, Laura, you might win with that one! I also love Bill's and Kerry's--the one about the groom arriving in a casket. Such great hooks, everyone, wow. The only bad part about this post is that I realize I've got to up my first-line game. Here are mine:

    From The Wishing Hill (being published by NAL/Penguin July 2, 2013):
    One of the cruise ships had come in early. Juliet Clark scanned the horizon, frowning at the black clouds scudding over the bay. The air smelled of roasted corn and chili powder, seaweed and rain. Unusual to have rain so early in this part of Mexico, but the way her luck was running, a monsoon was lurking just around the corner.

    From WIP, Beach Plum Island (NAL/Penguin, scheduled for April 2014):
    Last night's wind had scoured the beach clean. Ava Barrett stepped outside to clear her head and gather her courage before calling Elaine. She wasn't going to give up.

  22. This is so much fun! All three of mine are from my books that are being published by Kensington starting in September.

    The Seduction of Lady Phoebe: Lord Marcus Finley poured his third glass of brandy and strolled back to the library window.

    The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh: Lord Florian Iswell, the fifth son of the Marquis of Wigmore, entered his rooms on Jermyn Street after eating dinner at his club in the convivial company of some old school friends.

    The Temptation of Lady Serena: The Earl of Weir scowled. “Damn it, Serena, you can’t back out now. Not after the plans have been made.

  23. I'm amazed by how much of a book's tone can be set by just the first few lines here. Here's my current WIP:

    GOOD & GUILTY: "The police discovered my ex-boyfriend naked in his car with a bullet hole in his chest while I stood nearby with a gun in my hand yelling, 'Oh, my God! What the hell!' It didn't help that I had an elevated blood alcohol level or that I was wearing Dave’s jacket over my undies and Saved by Jesus t-shirt."

  24. Wow! These are some super first lines. What a great idea, WITS. And happy My to us all.

    My fist book, VERMONT ESCAPE has a release date of Summer 2013 from MuseItUp Publishing.

    Jill Barlow reached for her make-up kit and brushed against the one thing she’d been doing her damnedest to avoid.

  25. I love this post and exercise!

    From my WIP, Tresor:

    "Lex found herself struggling for breath before her brain even registered what she was seeing. His image on the screen hit her with all the power of a baseball bat to her solar plexus."

    Thanks for the opportunity to share. Loving all the great openings I am reading in the comments section. They are making me feel inspired.

      1. Thank you Fae.

        It is not the same jumbotron, though Robin's scene sounds particularly interesting.

        This has been a great exercise even reading through the comments and reading my sentence several times on its own. I think I will be changing the opening a little. Maybe change solar plexus to chest? Man, so much editing for a perfectionist. Looking forward t

  26. SINS OF A MAN (WIP)
    I’ve never regretted who I am or what I’ve done in order to survive in the world I was born into.

    ETERNAL NIGHTS (4/30/2013)
    With each passing day Jessica’s consciousness grew stronger.

    HUBBY 4 HIRE (Fall,2013)
    What the… Could this be real?

    This was so much fun!. Thank you one and all. V

  27. From my WIP - A Little On The Wild Side

    Bianca Ferrari gulped air through her mouth, trying to stop the rise of bile. She’d been in a lot of uncomfortable positions in her lifetime—as an ex-supermodel, she’d been photographed from every angle known to man, except this one—until now.

    She looked up from being violently ill and watched herself on the Jumbotron in Times Square—her long blonde hair in one hand, the other holding onto the edge of an overfilled garbage can.

    Her humiliation was now complete.

      1. I'm working on it. I have one due on June 1st and then I have to finnish A Little On The Wild Side. You guys don't give me any down time but it's great to know you're waiting for Trapper and Karma's stories. 🙂 Thanks!

  28. WOW, so many great lines.
    I'm almost too shy to do this, but here goes:

    PROTECTING THEIR CHILD (available now)
    "Your wife's a dead woman."

    .38 CALIBER COVER-UP (still available on-line)
    ALLEY. LEXUS. TWO DRUG DEALERS.
    The situation read like a bad book: The Auto-frickin-biography of Erren Rhodes.

    DOUBLE BLIND (WIP, June '14)
    Tall, blond, and deadly gorgeous.

  29. I think my favorite is the one with the casket. I loved reading these opening lines. I went back through the books I've written and they all begin with dialogue that segues into the story. So, no "first liners" from me.
    Patti

  30. Some really terrific lines here. Lot's of WIP's represented, so I'll add mine to the mix. LOL

    Asking For Trouble (WIP)
    Only one thing in the state of Texas was louder than the whine of Cole Matheson’s chainsaw—the red haired demon child he called a nephew.

    1. Oh, this is great. Reminds me of my summers on my cousin's ranches and farms in Texas! I had one male cousin--four years younger than me, who could scream to raise the dead.
      -Fae

  31. Knight's Curse (Harlequin Luna 2011) - Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I'd see them coming long before they hurt me.

    Darkest Knight (Harlequin Luna 2012) - "You're coming with me, right?" I asked Rafe when he opened the silver veil that separated the physical world from the realm of angels.

    Mirror Reader (WIP) - A mirror tells no tales. Its stories are all true; a past in pictures captured in glass.

  32. These are all fabulous first lines. Here's mine:

    CHOICES by Phyll Ashworth
    At exactly an hour and fifteen minutes after leaving Los Angeles International, Reg Humboldt felt the strange vibration.

    SOUTHERN STAR
    "I wouldn't ask Gary Pritchard to captain Southern Star if he were the last skipper left alive in the Bahamas."
    EYE WITNESS, Coming in August
    He was going to have her killed and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.

    1. Oh, I'm getting ready for a flight and you CHOICES line has me waaaaay worried, Phyllis. Good thing I'm going to visit a friend or the EYE WITNESS line would have me positively terrified!
      -Fae

  33. The Road To Comfort--WIP--
    Juliette St. James had only done two impetuous things in her life. And, from the billowing cloud of black smoke belching out from under the hood of her car, the second one was no wiser than the first.

  34. "The ancient alien space craft displayed marvelous acoustic properties. Russ Gordon could hear the crew gossiping about him with no trouble at all."

  35. And btw, having rewritten the beginning of my manuscript more times than I can count, posting it here just made me change it again: "The ancient alien space craft displayed marvelous acoustic properties. Russ Gordon heard the crew gossiping about his personal life with no trouble at all."

    Thanks for giving me a venue that allowed me to see the flaws.

    1. I had to laugh seeing your last comment, Kaye. I just saw a post on Facebook: "I do my best proofreading after I hit send." I can't even begin to count the number of times the perfect phrase comes AFTER I've sent a chapter to CPs or sent a query or contest submissions. *headslap*
      Glad this helped you. 🙂

  36. From "Dreamer":
    The creature had been running. The hot desert sands burned
    through his coarse leather shoes. The suggestion of a city in the
    distance seemed so real. Knowing he would not survive disappointment,
    the beast slowed his pace, keeping his eyes fixed on
    the heated sands. Time now separated him from disaster, but she
    might follow. Tangled in paranoia, he found a second wind and
    bolted forward... toward a dream... toward hope.

  37. Career Killer (WIP)
    My sorority sisters and I plunged headlong into sex, drugs and rock and roll, but it wasn’t enough for me. Once I tried murder, I found my true calling in life.

  38. First line of chapter 1 of RETURNING THE FAVOR (published with Boroughs Publishing Group):

    "Colin Barringer tried to convince himself he hated Lady Catherine James. Not with a minimal
    aversion or a smidgen of dislike. He needed an all-consuming hatred."

  39. If I ever sit down long enough to write a novel....or, knowing me, publish my Memoirs of a Texas Goddess my opening line will be:

    I come from a town where gossip was a sport and I was (at least) a 4 year varsity letterman.

  40. Dwarfed (WIP)
    Thoughts of guillotines dominate my mind.
    Snowflakes & Beeswax (WIP)
    Fat snowflakes performed lazy loops and spins in the air before gravity exerted control and forced them to land.

  41. HALF A HAND SHORT: My small colt, Pippin, made a clean, high leap over his gate and landed in a year of trouble for both of us. (WIP)
    I, CLAWDIA: I, Clawdia, am a Monitor, not by choice, but by birth. I spy on humans. like it or not. I am also a cat with calico fur of which I am very proud, and a single claw that has turned out to be far more useful and damaging than I ever expected. (WIP)
    MY FATHER'S MOCCASIN: Wannabe rock stars play air guitars. I, Jackson Thomas, want to be a spy, so I dictate mission logs into an air mike. Sometimes it records more than I want to share. (WIP)

  42. I'm a bit late for the game, but I still wanna play. Here's the first line from Equilibrium, coming from Kensington August 27, 2013: The first time Laura Klein saved her husband’s life, she’d found his side of the bed cold at four a.m.

  43. Great post! Here are a couple of mine:
    Rendezvous with Danger (romantic suspense)
    “You better hope we’re not rattling any cages while we dig for answers. Whoever sealed Alandra Pargas’s records, meant for them to stay sealed.”

    Something New (an "edgy" sweet romance)
    God! Can this day get any worse?

  44. "Heather, " her boss at the news said, "I need you to interview a survivor of the latest suspicious incident." - from A Baby for Heather.
    "Hand over your purses," barked the hulking man as he stepped out of a red car rolling beside the donkey cart where Megan McKinley was riding with her friend, Paula. - from Searching for Gold, soon to be released from Noble Romance Publishers.
    Carolyn Rae Author (facebook)
    http://www.carolynrae.com
    carolynraeW1 (twitter)

  45. From my newly released - Capri's Fate - My erotic adventure began the minute he whispered, "Do you happen to own a pair of red, fuzzy handcuffs?"

  46. Love the post - thanks for the opportunity to add to the list!
    ~~~~~~~~~
    Children.
    They shuffled through the warehouse, silent and clinging to one another. Five bedraggled and terrified kids, ranging from three to twelve years in age, escorted by cold-eyed guards from
    the receiving dock to the private cells. - "The Games Monsters Play" (appearing in High Stakes: A Vampire Anthology). Published March 2013 by Evil Jester Press.
    ~~~~~~~~~
    She crouched behind the dense brush at the forest edge, unaffected by the chill in the night air, and watched the red people sitting around the campfire in the center of the village. - The Last Trace. Published April 2013 (2nd ed.) by Dark Dreams Publishing.
    ~~~~~~~~~
    I watch my daughter, the sunlight dancing across her long dark hair, cradle her swollen belly as she kneels to place the flowers on my empty grave. - Watcher: Book I of The Chosen. Published October 2011 by Dark Dreams Publishing.

    1. It's probably a steering wheel, but with my warped senses I picture her on a knife-thrower's carnival wheel, John. To me, that would be a horror story.
      -Fae

  47. My gosh, I've seldom seen a list of comments this long here. Whew. Took me an age to read them all too. But, some great stuff there. It's interesting to see the many different voices.

    I haven't been particularly certain of the opening line to my WIP. However, when I tried to change it for something else, the group of people who test read the first chapter suggested I go back to the original. So, here it is, in all it's glory (?). 🙂

    From Aden Weaver & The Sasori Empire:

    The formal bark-cloth tunic itched unbearably.

  48. Jeanne Kern: DESTINATION: LOVE AND WHALES!
    Dr. Morgan West, owner of the West Small Animal Clinic--emphasis on small--was about to operate. On an elephant.

              1. Not sure about that, Jeanne. Growing up (and living on the New England shore) I wanted to be a marine biologist.

  49. Wonderful idea!

    From "How Was I Supposed To Know Know?" (released January 13, 2013): : "I never expected any of it to happen, especially not to me—maybe to a reality TV drama queen, but certainly not to ordinary me. But it did. All of it."

    From "Never Turn Back" (in progress): "She needed to make a death-bed confession."

  50. My third (unpublished) manuscript starts out: "There is always a price to pay for killing a man, no matter what the circumstances, no matter who the man."

    Some of the ones in these comments are really, really good.

    Patricia Rickrode
    w/a Jansen Schmidt

  51. Really enjoyed this post - my favorite - Tiffany Lawson - When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.

    WIPs
    Grand Girls Holiday (romantic thriller)
    "I can't believe you have talked me into going. You know what it will do to me."

    Agent Allison (psychological thriller)
    Agent Allison sat drinking her cappuccino in the downtown cafe. It had been a long day.

    The Chase (psychological thriller)
    Miles Anderson stretched his scrawny neck just enough from his vantage point. All was quiet, it was time.

    1. Love the line. Of course, you could be talking about house plants... Just saying...

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