First Lines Fridays was 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 don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
• Finally… reveal the book!

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Theodora Eloisa Charity Ettings was a very long name for a very small girl. This, her aunt liked to say, was probably why she was such a handful–by the time one had fully shouted the words “Theodora Eloisa Charity Ettings, you get back here this instant!” said ten-year-old girl was almost always long gone.

Half a Soul
by Olivia Atwater
ASIN/ISBN: 9780316462808
Publication: April 5, 2022 (3/29/2020)
Goodreads

Ever since she was cursed by a faerie, Theodora Ettings has had no sense of fear or embarrassment – a condition which makes her prone to accidental scandal. Dora hopes to be a quiet, sensible wallflower during the London Season – but when the strange, handsome and utterly uncouth Lord Sorcier discovers her condition, she is instead drawn into dangerous and peculiar faerie affairs.

If Dora’s reputation can survive both her curse and her sudden connection with the least-liked man in all of high society, then she may yet reclaim her normal place in the world. . . but the longer Dora spends with Elias Wilder, the more she begins to suspect that one may indeed fall in love, even with only half a soul.

This was one of the books I read this week. I enjoyed it a lot.

Have you read it? What did you think of it? If not, does the first line sound interesting to you?