First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
- Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
- Copy the first few lines, but donโt give anything else about the book away just yet โ you need to hook the reader first
- Finallyโฆ reveal the book!
The moment Anh Nhi Walsh stepped into her wedding dress and shimmied the eighty-year-old silk over her hips, she knew there had been a mistake.
A mistake so terrible, all the chocolate in the world couldn’t fix it.






by Marina Adair
ASIN/ISBN: 9781496727664
Publication: July 28, 2020
Series: When in Rome #1
Growing up the lone Asian in a community of WASPs, Annie has always felt out of place. Her solution? Start a family of her own. Not easy when every man sheโs dated, including her ex-fiancรฉ, finds โhis personโ right after breaking up with Annie. Even worse than canceling the wedding eight weeks beforehand? Learning the โother womanโ plans to walk down the aisle wearing her wedding gown. New planโfind a fresh, man-free start. Too bad her exit strategy unexpectedly lands her working at a hospital in Rome, Rhode Island, rather than Rome, Italy, and sharing a cabin with a big, brooding, and annoyingly hot male roommate.
Home on medical leave after covering a literally explosive story in China, investigative photojournalist Emmitt embarks on his most important assignmentโcementing his place in his daughterโs life. Three men and a baby might work in the movies, but with a stepdad and devoted uncle competing for Paisleyโs attention, Emmitt has lost his place at the family table. Then thereโs the adorably sexy squatter in his cabin, who poses another problem, one heโd very much like to solve up close and personal. But he canโt winโAnnie has sworn off men, Paisleyโs gone boy crazy, and Emmittโs estranged father reappears with a secret that changes everything.
Annie and Emmitt are about to discover love comes in many forms, and sometimes the best families are the ones we make. (from Goodreads)

In between new books, I’ve been rereading books I enjoyed. One of them is RomeAntically Challenged. I liked Annie and Emmitt can be charming when he wants to be. Their first meeting is pretty funny.