First Lines Friday . . .

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Welcome to First Lines Friday, originally hosted by Reading is my Superpower.

Instead of judging a book by its cover, here are the first few lines which I hope will make you want to read this book.

These lines are from a book that has been on my hardcopy bookshelves for a few years now. I recently picked it up to fulfil a category in one of my reading challenges.

<i>If only the swans would swim side by side on the dark green lake, the picture might turn out to be the crowning achievement of the wedding photographer’s career.

He was loath to change the couple’s position, because the soft light beneath the canopy of trees was turning the bride, with her loose red-gold curls, into a pre-Raphaelite angel and emphasising the chiselled cheekbones of her husband. He couldn’t remember when he had last been commissioned to photograph so handsome a couple. There was no need for tactful tricks for the new Mr and Mrs Matthew Cunliffe, no need to angle the lady so that the rolls of backfat were hidden (she was, if anything, fractionally too slender, but that would photograph well), no need to suggest the groom ‘try one with your mouth closed’, because Mr Cunliffe’s teeth were straight and white. The only thing that needed concealing, and it could be retouched out of the final pictures, was the ugly scar running down the bride’s forearm; purple and livid, with the puncture marks of stitches still visible.

She had been wearing a rubber and stockingette brace when the photographer arrived at her parent’s house that morning. It had given him quite a start when she had removed it for the photographs. He had even wondered if she had made a botched attempt to kill herself before the wedding, because he had seen it all. You did, after twenty years in the game.</i>

So, what do you think?

Does it make you want to read more?

These are the opening lines of <i>Lethal White</i> #4 in Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series.

When Billy, a troubled young man, comes to private eye Cormoran Strike’s office to ask for his help investigating a crime he thinks he witnessed as a child, Strike is left deeply unsettled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed, and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. But before Strike can question him further, Billy bolts from his office in a panic.

Trying to get to the bottom of Billy’s story, Strike and Robin Ellacott — once his assistant, now a partner in the agency — set off on a twisting trail that leads them through the backstreets of London, into a secretive inner sanctum within Parliament, and to a beautiful but sinister manor house deep in the countryside.

And during this labyrinthine investigation, Strike’s own life is far from straightforward: his newfound fame as a private eye means he can no longer operate behind the scenes as he once did. Plus, his relationship with his former assistant is more fraught than it ever has been — Robin is now invaluable to Strike in the business, but their personal relationship is much, much trickier than that.