First Lines Friday

First of all: Happy International Women’s Day! Secondly: Surprise, my reading life is nowhere near a reading slump! I currently don’t have school and had therefore a lot of time to read. I’ll use the book I just started for today’s first lines, then talk about it and reveal it at the end!

“BLOCK!” “Where?” “I can’t tell you where – you’re supposed to follow my movements!” “Well, then, slow down.” Mather rolls his eyes. “You can’t tell an enemy soldier to slow down.” I grin at his exasperation, but my smile is short lived as the dull edge of his practice sword swipes under my knees. I slam onto the dusty prairie with a back-popping thud, my blade flying from my hands and vanishing into the thigh-high grass nearby.

That was the first paragraph and – I love it. I never liked slow starts as my dad always says “Read the first page and if you don’t like it, don’t buy the book.” when we’re in a book store. And so far, it’s always been true.

I love fighting scenes in general and especially hand-to-hand combat described in books. It’s not as fast as in movies where you sometimes can’t even follow and see the blades because everything is horrendously fast – don’t get me wrong, I love action movies.

Furthermore, I like that it starts with an actual person talking. Have you ever noticed, not many books actually start with people talking?!

Enough said, here’s the book: Snow like Ashes by Sarah Raasch.

I actually once started reading this book years ago, but if I remember correctly, my dad also gave me The Raven Cycle as a present – and so I read that first and never gave this book a second glance. Until now. I’m really excited since I recently read a great review about it and it actually sounds amazing: fantasy, politics, romance, intrigues. Everything packed into one book!

I hope you enjoyed this tiny post and have a great weekend!