Tag Archives: first page

Great Opening Paragraph 81… ‘Fair Exchange’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“In her youth Louise Daudry, née Geuze, had committed a wicked and unusual crime. At that time, autumn 1792, she wanted money very badly, so she put aside her knowledge that what she was doing was wrong and would hurt others. She told herself that virtue was a luxury the poor could not afford. She let herself be persuaded that no one would ever find out.” Michèle RobertsFrom ‘Fair Exchange’ by Michèle Roberts

Read my reviews of two novels by Michèle Roberts:-
FAIR EXCHANGE
THE WALWORTH BEAUTY

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ by Haruki Murakami
‘Possession’ by AS Byatt
‘A Bouquet of Barbed Wire’ by Andrea Newman

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara FAIR EXCHANGE by Michèle Roberts http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Ob via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 80… ‘Original Sin’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“For a temporary shorthand-typist to be present at the discovery of a corpse on the first day of a new assignment, if not unique, is sufficiently rare to prevent its being regarded as an occupational hazard.”
PD JamesFrom ‘Original Sin’ by PD James

Here’s my review of ORIGINAL SIN #9ADAMDALGLIESH

… and my reviews of the other Adam Dalgliesh mysteries by PD James:-
COVER HER FACE #1ADAM DALGLIESH
A MIND TO MURDER #2ADAMDALGLIESH
UNNATURAL CAUSES #3ADAMDALGLIESH
SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE #4ADAMDALGLIESH
THE BLACK TOWER #5ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS #6ADAMDALGLIESH
A TASTE FOR DEATH #7ADAMDALGLIESH
DEVICES AND DESIRES #8ADAMDALGLIESH
A CERTAIN JUSTICE #10ADAMDALGLIESH
DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS #11ADAMDALGLIESH
THE MURDER ROOM #12ADAMDALGLIESH … read the #FirstPara HERE
THE LIGHTHOUSE #13ADAMDALGLIESH
THE PRIVATE PATIENT #14ADAMDALGLIESH

Here are my reviews of the two Cordelia Gray mysteries:-
AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN #CGRAY1
THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN #CGRAY2

And another PD James novel:-
INNOCENT BLOOD

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Rainmaker’ by John Grisham 
‘To Have and Have Not’ by Ernest Hemingway 
‘A Bouquet of Barbed Wire’ by Andrea Newman 

And if you’d like to share a link:
#Books #FirstPara ORIGINAL SIN by PD James http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1C3 via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 79… ‘Illywhacker’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“My name is Herbert Badgery. I am a hundred and thirty-nine years old and something of a celebrity. They come and look at me and wonder how I do it. There are weeks when I wonder the same, whole stretches of terrible time. It is hard to believe you can feel so bad and still not die.”
Peter Carey From ‘Illywhacker’ by Peter Carey 

Read the #FirstPara of JACK MAGGS, also by Peter Carey.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘After You’d Gone’ by Maggie O’Farrell
‘Fortunes of War’ by Olivia Manning
‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara ILLYWHACKER by Peter Carey http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1KP via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 78… ‘Divisadero’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“By our grandfather’s cabin, on the high ridge, opposite a slope of buckeye trees, Claire sits on her horse, wrapped in a thick blanket. She has camped all night and lit a fire in the hearth of that small structure our ancestor built more than a generation ago, and which he lived in like a hermit or some creature, when he first came to this country. He was a self-sufficient bachelor who eventually owned all the land he looked down onto. He married lackadaisically when he was forty, had one son, and left him this farm along the Petaluma road.”
Michael Ondaatje From ‘Divisadero’ by Michael Ondaatje 

Read the #FirstPara of THE ENGLISH PATIENT, also by Michael Ondaatje.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Tipping the Velvet’ by Sarah Waters
‘Back When We Were Grownups’ by Anne Tyler
‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara DIVISADERO by Michael Ondaatje http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1KL via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 77… ‘Vanishing Acts’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“I was six years old the first time I disappeared.
My father was working on a magic act for the annual Christmas show at the senior centre, and his assistant, the receptionist who had a real gold tooth and false eyelashes as thick as spiders, got the flu. I was fully prepared to beg my father to be part of the act, but he asked, as if I were the one who would be doing him a favour.”
Jodi PicoultFrom ‘Vanishing Acts’ by Jodi Picoult

Click the title to read my review of VANISHING ACTS, and try the #FirstPara of another novel by Jodi Picoult, NINETEEN MINUTES.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Long Drop’ by Denise Mina 
‘The Guest Cat’ by Takashi Hiraide 
‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara VANISHING ACTS by @jodipicoult http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1GQ via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 75… ‘Diary of an Ordinary Woman’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“26 November 1914. Father said if I want to keep a diary I must begin it on New Year’s Day. He said no one starts a diary in November. But New Year’s Day is five weeks away and I do not want to wait. I don’t see why I should either. Why should diaries have to start on 1st January. It is tidy, I admit, and I am a tidy person, but that is all.”
Margaret ForsterFrom ‘Diary of an Ordinary Woman’ by Margaret Forster

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Affinity’ by Sarah Waters
‘A Month in the Country’ by JL Carr
‘Armadillo’ by William Boyd

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara DIARY OF AN ORDINARY WOMAN by Margaret Forster http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1GK via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 74… ‘The Last Juror’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“After decades of patient mismanagement and loving neglect, The Ford County Times went bankrupt in 1970. The owner and publisher, Miss Emma Caudle, was ninety-three years old and strapped to a bed in a nursing home in Tupelo. The editor, her son Wilson Caudle, was in his seventies and had a plate in his head from the First War. A perfect circle of dark grafted skin covered the plate at the top of his long, sloping forehead, and throughout his adult life he had endured the nickname of Spot. Spot did this. Spot did that. Here, Spot. There, Spot.”
John GrishamFrom ‘The Last Juror’ by John Grisham

Read these #FirstParas also by John Grisham:-
THE PELICAN BRIEF
THE RAINMAKER

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Death in Summer’ by William Trevor
‘The Impressionist’ by Hari Kunzru
‘Lord Jim’ by Joseph Conrad

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE LAST JUROR by @JohnGrisham via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Fv

Great Opening Paragraph 72… ‘Nineteen Minutes’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“By the time you read this, I hope to be dead.
You can’t undo something that’s happened; you can’t take back a word that’s already been said out loud. You’ll think about me and wish that you had been able to talk me out of this. You’ll try to figure out what would have been the one right thing to say, to do. I guess I should tell you, Don’t blame yourself; this isn’t your fault, but that would be a lie. We both know that I didn’t get here by myself.”
Jodi Picoult From ‘Nineteen Minutes’ by Jodi Picoult

Read the first paragraph of VANISHING ACTS and my book review of VANISHING ACTS , also by Jodi Picoult.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Sacred Hearts’ by Sarah Dunant
‘The L-Shaped Room’ By Lynn Reid Banks
‘Bel Canto’ by Ann Patchett

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara NINETEEN MINUTES by @jodipicoult http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1xt via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 71… ‘Mara and Dann’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The scene that the child, then the girl, then the young woman tried so hard to remember was clear enough in its beginnings. She had been hustled – sometimes carried, sometimes pulled along by the hand – through a dark night, nothing to be seen but stars, and then she was pushed into a room and told, Keep quiet, and the people who had brought her disappeared. She had not taken notice of their faces, what they were, she was too frightened, but they were her people, the People, she knew that. The room was nothing she had known. It was a square, built of large blocks of rock. She was inside one of the rock houses. She had seen them all her life. The rock houses were where they lived, the Rock People, not her people, who despised them. She had often see the Rock People walking along the roads, getting quickly out of the way when they saw the People; but a dislike of them that she had been taught made it hard to look much at them. She was afraid of them, and thought them ugly.”
Doris LessingFrom ‘Mara and Dann’ by Doris Lessing

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘A Bouquet of Barbed Wire’ by Andrea Newman
‘After You’d Gone’ by Maggie O’Farrell
‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara MARA AND DANN by Doris Lessing http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1xp via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph 68… ‘A Change of Climate’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“One day when Kit was ten years old, a visitor cut her wrists in the kitchen. She was just beginning on this cold, difficult form of death when Kit came in to get a glass of milk.”
Hilary MantelFrom ‘A Change of Climate’ by Hilary Mantel

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Dance Dance Dance’ by Haruki Murakami
‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy
‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote 12

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara A CHANGE OF CLIMATE by Hilary Mantel via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-10z