First Lines or First Impressions - You've got to make them count

Ready to bring in the new year?

May your 2018 be full of joy, laughter, love and friendship.

What makes you pick up a book?

Quite possibly the cover draws you in first, perhaps you do read the summary to see what it's all about, but we don't buy books for their covers or their summaries. We buy them for the stories between the flimsy front and back, the pages that are so neat and typed, so black and white.
We want the stories.
My process is to read a little, a chapter, the whole first half (depending on how much time I have in the bookstore), to get a feel for the novel that I might want to buy.
But, a third thing that will draw you in is the very first sentence you read in the novel.

Cute dedications help too, but most people don't read those until after they own the book and have sat down to read it on their own time.

A first line will make you stop and reevaluate what you picked up. It might convince you to buy it; it might convince you to put it back on the shelf. No matter your reaction there are so many elements of a novel that are important.

So, what makes a great first line?

Consider some famous examples:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice(1813)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

Courtesy of: http://americanbookreview.org/100bestlines.asp

Of course, it's not just classic books and long dead authors that have truly memorable lines.
Here are some more recent additions:

“First the colors.
Then the humans. 
That’s usually how I see things.
Or at least, how I try.”
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

“A thief is a lot like a wizard. I have quick hands. And I can make things disappear. But then I stole the magician’s locus magicalicus and almost disappeared myself forever.”
The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas 

“How does one describe Artemis Fowl? Various psychiatrists have tried and failed.”
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Courtesy of: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-jane-hathaway/38-best-first-lines-in-no_b_8836484.html


Finally, I give you a sneak peek at a few of my first lines:

"The first time I saw her she was skipping along the Roman Bridge of Córdoba, wearing a lemon yellow skirt and a vibrant shade of violet sweater."

"I was ten years old when my parents were gutted and hung up so that their boots barely scraped the deck."

"The Princes were all accounted for, twenty-four of the highest class from around the land."

"Presently, I shook off my coat."