Thursday, April 16, 2020

First Line Friday #103


First Line Friday is brought to you by Hoarding Books. Playing along is easy: open the book nearest you and share the first line. Then check out the link to see the other first lines posted this week.

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"1326 was the year when the queen of England invaded her husband's kingdom with an army, grotesquely executed his powerful chamberlain who was perhaps also his lover, and brought about the forced abdication of a king for the first time in English history."

Note: This quote is taken from an ARC I received for free via NetGalley and may change in the final published copy.

Happy Reading!
Sarah

26 comments:

  1. Definitely not a period I know much (if anything) about.........

    Here's my First Line(s):

    "I was stressed out. I was walking around in circles, trying to win an argument on the internet. And Andrea was looking at me. Or I think she was looking at me. It was hard to tell, as I was looking at my phone."

    Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig.

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    1. I got into a huge Internet argument last night and this morning because yesterday I reached my breaking point in dealing with trump's idiot followers and I had one of my rage blackouts where gave no fucks as I told people off who were being absolute fuckwads. It started because "Dr Oz" stated that a 2-3% mortality rate might be acceptable if it means getting kids back to school. I guess he is counting on trump's base to not be able to do math, because that 'little' percentage comes to around 1.5 million kids. And that's not even factoring in all of the teachers, support staff, and administrators who would also be at risk. It was a tough night, and I empathize with the author...unless he is also a fuckwad, lol.

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  2. "The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home."

    The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, a lovely and timeless comfort read. I wish it would stop snowing and spring would just finally get here!

    - Donna

    PS This book looks interesting. We watched an episode of Secrets of Great British Castles, where he visited Leeds Castle in Kent - gorgeous, and he told this story in relation to it. This is another book I will have to add to my TBR.....

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    1. We got six inches of snow yesterday afternoon and evening; it was so lovely! Even though it is almost all gone now, it really soothed my soul, as we had almost no snow all winter. I am not at peace and ready for Spring, because it was just so beautiful yesterday.

      I LOVE DAN JONES. He is my fave historian and I can talk about him and his books for hours. He has new shows out and I am dying because they are only on the History Channel in the UK. I got to meet him a couple years ago and I almost cried. He is very kind and deals with my crazy, and knows I am his #1 fan, haha.

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  3. Sounds interesting! Happy Friday!!

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  4. That's my kind of Queen!!
    I've got 'On the day the treasures of the East are unloaded in the harbour of Acapulco, the feria begins.' from On Wilder Seas by Nikki Marmery. Just about to start this historical fiction about the lone slave woman on The Golden Hind.

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    1. I am partial to queens who do not always play by the rules, even when they might be in the wrong sometimes.

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  5. Happy Friday! My first line is from “The Vanishing of Olivia Beck” by Sara L. Foust:

    “Olivia Beck pulled her gaze from the rearview mirror for the tenth time in as many minutes. She would not cry.”

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  6. "For as much as the lande over the sea, that is to say, the holy land, that men cal the land of Behest, among all other lands is most worthy & Soveraine, for it is blessed, halowed and sacred of the precious bloud of our Lord Jesu Christ, in the which land it liked him to take flesh and bloud of the Virgin Mary, to environ that lande with his owne feete."

    Sir John Mandeville's Travels

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  7. Happy Friday! Today, I'm sharing the first line from Desert Willow by Patricia Beal: "Clara Malone sat alone in the airport, her grandmother's labored request rushing through her mind."

    https://moments-of-beauty.blogspot.com/2020/04/first-line-fridays-desert-willow-by.html

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    1. Saaaaaame. She was pretty bad-ass, even if she made plenty of mistakes.

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  9. I love British history. It's fascinating!

    I'm sharing the first line from The Englisch Daughter by Cindy Woodsmall and Erin Woodsmall on my blog. This book is FANTASTIC! I'm currently on chapter 17 so I'll share a line from there.
    "Roy glanced at the clock on the wall of the social services' private meeting room."
    Hope you have a great weekend!

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    1. I do too, and I especially love books that look at daily life, and not just how the king and royalty lived. Happy Reading!

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  10. I am still reading the same books I was reading last Friday. So hopefully I will be back next week with something new. Your sentence was a doozy!

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    1. You can always share a first line from a new chapter, keep us updated on what's going in from last week! :)

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  11. Never was a fan of Edward II... I don't think many Scot's are. I love that he was overthrown by his own wife. :)

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    1. I imagine not, and even fewer would be a fan of his father Edward I, the Hammer of the Scots! I'm not fond of Edward I for that, as Scotland is very near and dear to my heart.

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  12. I’m doing Before I Called You Mine by Nicole Deese. I’ll use the first line from Chapter 15:

    Like a grouping of cancerous cells, my family’s cynicism had slithered into my subconscious and infected my thoughts with their poison.

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  13. Well, that is some interesting history that I didn't know (or have forgotten if I did). I am thinking that their marriage was not a love match.

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    1. Most definitely NOT a love match! Edward II was truthfully not really cut out to be king. He enjoyed activities that were considered beneath his station like rowing, hedging, and ditching. He also liked to keep company with lower-class workers and this appalled everyone and he was called unking-like. And it did not help that everyone hated his BFF Piers Gaveston.

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