Open the book nearest to you and share the first line!
Hello, reader friends! It’s FLF time! Today’s featured book is written by a debut author I had the pleasure of meeting at CFRR a few months ago.
Her book is (FINALLY) at the very tippy top of my to-be-read tower! I’m so anxious to get caught up with blogging and reviewing so I can dive back into reading!
The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck by Bethany Turner
“If you’re willing to admit it, you probably know me as Raine de Bourgh. Yes, that Raine de Bourgh. Did you blush at the mere mention of my pen name? Yeah. So did I.“
Sooooo, I couldn’t stop at one line. What can I say? The book drew me in!
Your turn, reader friends! What are you reading? Share YOUR first line in the comments, then click the blue blog hopping frog button below to visit more FLF folks!
Join us!
We also invite you to participate in First Line Fridays on your own blog!
Simply share the URL of your blog POST (not your blog), your name, and your email (which will remain hidden) with our froggy friend above! Please remember to link back to Hoarding Books within your post or grab a button from the sidebar so everyone can find the FLF fun.
Coming soon…
First Line Friday special editions! Mark your calendars with the dates listed in the sidebar (or scroll down on mobile) then get ready to celebrate those special occasions with us!
Today we are super excited to welcome our VERY FIRST GUEST to Hoarding Books! Kristi Ann Hunter graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in computer science but always knew she wanted to write. Kristi is the author of the HAWTHORNE HOUSE series and a 2016 RITA Award winner and Christy Award finalist. She lives with her husband and three children in Georgia.
Kristi: All of them. I hoard all the books. Seriously. There are books on my shelf that I know I will never, ever read, yet they remain. As far as authors and books I go out of my way to include, if it’s a romance, I’ll at least consider it. Love me some boy meets girl, chaos ensues, happiness found sort of books. There’s quite a bit of Karen Witemeyer and Regina Jennings on my shelf as well as some general market authors like Julia Quinn.
As the Hubs is also a book hoarder of the fantasy and theological variety and we have passed this trait down to our children… our house has a lot of books.
Rachel: “I know I will never, ever read, yet they remain.” I am SO glad to hear you say this…Because I totally have a ton of these books as well! Maybe I’m not all that crazy after all. Hehe!
Which character do you relate to most in An Inconvenient Beauty?
Kristi: Um… none of them is probably not an acceptable response here, is it? I suppose Isabella because I do have a tendency to go off half-cocked on an emotional decision and take too much blame on myself. Honestly, though, I talk too much to keep secrets like she did. I felt like I knew Griffith better because I grew up in a family of Griffiths. Lots of logic, lots of thinkers, lots of planners. And then me. My poor parents.
Rachel: **Note to self: Never tell Kristi a secret** I adore Griffith SO much! From the beginning he ha been MY Hawthorne House Hero. ❤
Tell us an interesting thing you learned while researching An Inconvenient Beauty.
Kristi: **Okay, minor spoiler alert on this one because it’s a historical event that my characters show up at.** I won’t tell you what they do there, but I will mention the event because I stumbled across it while researching something else for the book and I loved it so much I simply HAD to include it.
After the Battle of Waterloo, a soldier was sent to deliver the news to the Prince Regent along with two golden eagles that had been captured from Napoleon’s forces. The eagles were from the tops of their flag standards and were guarded by the forces like treasure, so having two of them was a very big deal.
The soldier got to London, found out where the Prince Regent was, and interrupted the ball, still in his torn, dirty, bloody uniform. No pulling the Prince Regent to the side, no sending a message, just walked into the middle of the ball.
That’s so cool.
Rachel: I LOVE THIS! And I am SO glad you included it in the book. Really an epic scene…For more than one reason!
What can you tell us about your new series?
Click the image to go to Kristi’s Facebook page. Cover reveal is TODAY!
Kristi: Well, we’re leaving London for a bit, traveling out to the town of Marlborough. I’m very excited about this series because the group of ladies that ties this next series together is remarkable. They’re all incredibly different, and shouldn’t really have anything to do with each other, but a common goal has brought them together and they’ve formed a family around that. Only the foundation of that family is a bit unstable and as it starts to crumble, they’ll encounter some equally remarkable men and together they’ll build something even stronger.
Wow. That was really vague and poetic. I can also tell you that the cover for the first book is GORGEOUS. I may have danced around my house when I saw it the first time.
Rachel: If it has your name on it…I will read it…end of story. I am excited to see a different part of England through your characters’ eyes though!
What’s something that readers would find surprising to learn about you?
Kristi: I have no idea because I’m not quite sure what my readers think of me now. They might be surprised to learn that I’m rather unorganized and a bit flighty. I have to write my schedule on the fridge every week or I’ll forget where I’m supposed to go and when. (Seriously. It takes up the entire front of the fridge. I use chalk markers and write directly on it.)
This is rather easy to hide on social media, but if you ever meet me in person I have been known to be unintentionally rude and walk away in the middle of a conversation because… I actually have no idea why this happens and it’s really embarrassing because it’s never intentional and I won’t realize that I’ve done it until five minutes later. Whereupon I rudely leave the conversation I joined since then to come awkwardly apologize. Sigh. Vicious cycle. So if I’ve ever done that (or ever do that) to you…. I’M SORRY!
Rachel: This is rather hilarious! Not gonna lie. And you are extremely competitive! I am too though…So, I was really glad we got paired on the same team at CFRR 😉
The First Line
Prologue
Eton College, Berkshire, England, 1797
The line between boy and man was never murkier than when a father died too soon, leaving his son to walk through the foibles of youth while shouldering the responsibilities of adulthood.
What are you reading? What is your first line?
Open the book nearest you and post the first line in the comments below…And don’t forget to enter the GIVEAWAY via the Rafflecopter form below.
Then join the Linky below with the URL to your blog POST (not your blog), your name and your email (which will remain hidden). Then bounce around the Linky!
Giveaway!
Click that there Rafflecopter link and enter for a chance to win a PRINT copy of An Inconvenient Beauty! (US addresses only) For the purpose of this giveaway, Reading Is My SuperPower’s giveaway policies apply. They can be found here.
Grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line!
Today I am going to post a line from
Hometown Girl
by Courtney Walsh.
My First Line:
Beth Whitaker hated flowers.
What are you reading? What is your first line?
Open the book nearest you and post the first line in the comments below…
Then join the Linky below with the URL to your blog POST (not your blog), your name and your email (which will remain hidden). Then bounce around the Linky!
We all know that it’s NOT hoarding if it’s books. But that was a little long for a catchy blog title so we opted to shorten it be honest and go with “Hoarding Books” 😉
WELCOME to our new home base for First Line Friday and other potentially bookish shenanigans!! We are so excited about this new group blog and opening FLF up to even more friends!!
Right about now, you may have some questions. I’ll do my best to answer them for you 🙂
First: who are we?
You can learn more about the four of us here, but the short answer is: a group of four friends who love each other and books (duh). We’re mamas and cool aunts, bookworms and bloggers.
In 2016, we started a weekly blog meme called First Line Fridays, borrowing the idea from other bloggers who were no longer organizing the linkup. The basic premise is simple: grab the book nearest you & share the first line!
Since nearly everything is more fun with friends, particularly bookish everythings, we link up to each other’s blogs and see what first lines we’re all sharing each week. Over the last year, we’ve grown from the original four into over twenty-four bloggers!
Third: what’s this whole linky business?
Starting next week, we’ll have a linky widget attached to our first ‘Hoarding Books’ First Line Friday post. (It will turn out something like this.)
Everyone is welcome to participate each week, whether you’re a current FLF blogger or a brand new recruit 🙂 We only ask that you link back to the Hoarding Books blog on your own First Line Friday post. You can also add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s posts (which will be live Fridays at midnight eastern). This lets everyone know who is playing along at home & gives them a way to check out your post too. You may even find a new fave blog to follow!!
No blog? No problem. Just post your answers in the comments!
The HTML proficient can snag the button in the sidebar. The rest of us can right click and save this one!
Fourth: I heard something about a lunch giveaway?
Umm…LAUNCH giveaway… but Yes, yes you did!
Click that there Rafflecopter link and enter for a chance to win a 4-book prize pack! (US addresses only) For the purpose of this giveaway, Reading Is My SuperPower’s giveaway policies apply. They can be found here.
Pay attention now! Here are the first lines of these books, in no particular order. Can you guess which line goes with which book? You’ll get bonus entries for guessing!
a. ‘Unless you get one of those miracles they’re always talking about in church, I don’t see how you’ll be able to keep the business open into spring.’
b. Jeremiah Ring had witnessed death as often as the next man on the Allegheny frontier, but in all his thirty years he had encountered no deaths more dismaying than those confronting him now.
c. ‘I fear that our wassailing has become a nuisance.’
d. It took one ten-thousandth of a second – exactly 0.000169 seconds – for the bullet to rip through his shoulder.
We are so excited about this new home base for First Line Fridays! As we transition to the linky widget and away from copying & pasting everyone’s links each week, we want to give a shout-out to the bloggers who have been with us each week for some portion of the past year!
Goodreads | Amazon | BookDepository | Christianbook
re super excited to welcome our 
Kristi: Um… none of them is probably not an acceptable response here, is it? I suppose Isabella because I do have a tendency to go off half-cocked on an emotional decision and take too much blame on myself. Honestly, though, I talk too much to keep secrets like she did. I felt like I knew Griffith better because I grew up in a family of Griffiths. Lots of logic, lots of thinkers, lots of planners. And then me. My poor parents.
