#FreeDownloads

#FirstLineFriday Submissions Are Now Closed! Here’s the Answer to Our Quiz

/ Marcia / 24 Comments

Submissions for #FirstLineFriday#2 are officially closed now. My thanks to all who stopped by to see if this one rang a bell. I’m sorry—but maybe not surprised– to say we have no winners, though. While I was hoping I’d be wrong, I was also thinking this would be a tough one, even though it made an official Top 100 Opening Lines list. This is one of my favorite reads of recent years, and well deserving of being included in the list, in my own opinion. If you are a fantasy reader of any age, I highly recommend you check it out. So, without further ado, here’s the answer to today’s quiz:

“Joost had two problems: the moon and his mustache.” is the opening line from Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. Six of Crows is a fantasy novel which takes place in the Amsterdam-inspired city of Ketterdam. The new series takes place in the same world as Bardugo’s Grisha books but is set in a different time frame, in a world loosely inspired by the Dutch Republic of the 17th century, and based on a magical system. The plot is told from the close third-person viewpoints of five different characters, plus a first and last chapter from the point of view of two minor characters.

The book is the first in a duology, followed by Crooked Kingdom. Bardugo’s Grishaverse” trilogy, which includes Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, and Ruin and Rising. Reading both series will provide a deeper understanding of the Grisha world. Bardugo has since also written The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic which features several short stories from the Grishaverse, and King of Scars, a spin-off from the “Shadow and Bone” trilogy.

Take a close look at this stunning cover!
Amazing!

WHAT AMAZON SAYS:

Enter the Grishaverse with the #1 New York Times–bestselling Six of Crows, Book One of the Six of Crows Duology.

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. . . .

A convict with a thirst for revenge.

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager.

A runaway with a privileged past.

A spy known as the Wraith.

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo returns to the breathtaking world of the Grishaverse in this unforgettable tale about the opportunity—and the adventure—of a lifetime.

Praise for Six of Crows:

“Six of Crows is a twisty and elegantly crafted masterpiece that thrilled me from the beginning to end.” –New York Times-bestselling author Holly Black

“Six of Crows [is] one of those all-too-rare, unputdownable books that keeps your eyes glued to the page and your brain scrambling to figure out what’s going to happen next.” –Michael Dante DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra

“There’s conflict between morality and amorality and an appetite for sometimes grimace-inducing violence that recalls the Game of Thrones series. But for every bloody exchange there are pages of crackling dialogue and sumptuous description. Bardugo dives deep into this world, with full color and sound. If you’re not careful, it’ll steal all your time.” —The New York Times Book Review 

My Thoughts:

And any book that has garnered a 4.5 star average out of 3,691 ratings can’t be all bad, now can it? I HIGHLY recommend Bardugo’s work, and while reading about the Grishaverse first might be the typical approach, Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom stand on their own, as well. And as an aside, I’ve heard Netflix has plans for this one, and may already have begun filming. I haven’t been following the news, because I almost always hate the film version of my favorite books, but that right there tells you they think it’s a winner.

Buy Six of Crows Here

And that wraps up this week’s quiz, folks! Again, sorry I couldn’t give away any downloads, but I’m still happy to be sharing a book I love with folks who may not have heard of it yet.

#FirstLineFriday will be back in two weeks, and I’ll try to have something that rings a bell with more of you. Maybe. You never can tell. 😀  See you then!

 

#FirstLineFriday #GiveawayContest #FreeDownloads

/ Marcia / 21 Comments

Time for another #FirstLineFriday folks, and just to keep you on your toes, I’ve chosen something I suspect will be tricky, even though it isn’t a classic from decades gone by. Let’s see if you prove me wrong today.

PLEASE READ these simple rules, just to refresh yourself on how this should be done. Thanks.

  1. Be one of the first five people to email me before the game ends at 4:00pm, with the title and author of the correct book. 
  2. Do not reply here on the blog. Email only: marciameara16@gmail.com
  3. Honor System applies. No Googling, please.
  4. Submissions end at 4:00 P.M. EST, or when I receive 5 correct answers, whichever comes first.
  5. Winners who live in the U.S. may request a free download of any one of my books for themselves, or for someone of their choice. OR, if they’ve read all of the offered books, they may request a free download of my next publication.
  6. Winners who live elsewhere may request a mobi or PDF file of the same books, since, sadly, Amazon won’t let me gift you from the site.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for! Put on your thinking caps, because here is today’s opening line:

“Joost had two problems: the moon and his mustache.” 

Remember, email answers only, please. Thanks! And now off I go to await your guesses. 

GOOD LUCK!

#FirstLineFriday #GiveawayContest #FreeDownloads

/ Marcia / 19 Comments

As promised, #FirstLineFriday is back! We’ll have to see how it goes, but I’m aiming for every other week, and hope you guys will enjoy these little challenges that teach us so much about how to use opening lines effectively. This week, I’ve chosen one that I think will be fairly easy, but we’ll see if that turns out to be true or not.

As always, the rules are simple:

  1. Be one of the first five people to email me before the game ends at 4:00pm, with the title and author of the correct book. 
  2. Do not reply here on the blog. Email only: marciameara16@gmail.com
  3. Honor System applies. No Googling, please.
  4. Submissions end at 4:00 P.M. EST, or when I receive 5 correct answers, whichever comes first.
  5. Winners who live in the U.S. may request a free download of any one of my books for themselves, or for someone of their choice. OR, if they’ve read all of the offered books, they may request a free download of my next publication.
  6. Winners who live elsewhere may request a mobi or PDF file of the same books, since, sadly, Amazon won’t let me gift you from the site.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for! Put on your thinking caps, because here is today’s opening line:

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” 

Remember, email answers only,  please. Thanks! And now off I go to await your guesses. 

Motivation inscription of splash paint letters

#FirstLineFriday #GiveawayContest #FreeDownloads

/ Marcia / 17 Comments

I apologize for the long delay since our last #FirstLineFriday post, and hope you’ll understand that it wasn’t for lack of interest in offering one. I’m just way, way behind on everything. But, having said that, here I am today with one I hope you’ll enjoy.

Not sure whether this one will be ridiculously easy or crazy hard, but I have no doubt the answer won’t be unfamiliar to you.  So here’s your chance to try your hand at #FirstLineFriday, our little quiz designed to help us appreciate some of the best opening lines in literary history. As always, from the classics of long ago to the latest best-sellers, no matter how old or how recent, everything is fair game on #FirstLineFriday. Let’s see how many of you recognize this one.  

Also as always, the rules are simple:

  1. Be one of the first five people to email me before the game ends at 4:00pm, with the title and author of the correct book. 
  2. Do not reply here on the blog. Email only: marciameara16@gmail.com
  3. Honor System applies. No Googling, please.
  4. Submissions end at 4:00 P.M. EST, or when I receive 5 correct answers, whichever comes first.
  5. Winners who live in the U.S. may request a free download of any one of my books for themselves, or for someone of their choice. OR, if they’ve read all of the offered books, they may request a free download of my next publication.
  6. Winners who live elsewhere may request a mobi or PDF file of the same books, since, sadly, Amazon won’t let me gift you from the site.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for! Put on your thinking caps, because here is today’s opening line:

“If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.” 

Remember, email answers only, please. Thanks! And now off I go to await your guesses. 

#FirstLineFriday Submissions Are Now Closed! Here’s the Answer to Our Quiz, and the Name of Our Winner!

/ Marcia / 29 Comments

Submissions for #FirstLineFriday are officially closed now. My thanks to all who emailed me with their guesses. Today, we have one winner: Harmony Kent.  Congratulations, Harmony, and I hope you enjoy your prize.

Harmony’s Author Page can be found HERE. 

And now, here’s the answer to today’s quiz:

“Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow.” is the opening line of the epistolary novel, Carrie, by American author Stephen King.

 It was King’s first published novel, released on April 5, 1974, with a first print run of 30,000 copies. Set primarily in the future year of 1979, it revolves around the eponymous Carrie White, an unpopular friendless misfit and bullied high school girl from an abusive religious household who uses her newly discovered telekinetic powers to exact revenge on those who torment her.

During the process, she causes one of the worst local disasters the town has ever had. King has commented that he finds the work to be “raw” and “with a surprising power to hurt and horrify.” Much of the book uses newspaper clippings, magazine articles, letters, and excerpts from books to tell how Carrie destroyed the fictional town of Chamberlain, Maine while exacting revenge on her sadistic classmates and her own mother, Margaret.

Several adaptations of Carrie have been released, including a 1976 feature film, a 1988 Broadway musical as well as a 2012 off-Broadway revival, a 1999 feature film sequel, a 2002 television film, a 2013 feature film, and a 2018 television special episode of Riverdale. The book is dedicated to King’s wife Tabitha King: “This is for Tabby, who got me into it – and then bailed me out of it.”

WHAT AMAZON SAYS:

Stephen King’s legendary debut, about a teenage outcast and the revenge she enacts on her classmates.

Carrie White may be picked on by her classmates, but she has a gift. She can move things with her mind. Doors lock. Candles fall. This is her power and her problem. Then, an act of kindness, as spontaneous as the vicious taunts of her classmates, offers Carrie a chance to be normal…until an unexpected cruelty turns her gift into a weapon of horror and destruction that no one will ever forget.

Buy Carrie HERE

I think this particular line proves once again that while great opening lines can pull us into a story, it’s the tale, itself, that sticks with us in the long run.

And that wraps it up for this week, folks. Hoped you enjoyed playing along! Thanks so much for taking part, and stay tuned for another #FirstLineFriday quiz in two  weeks. See you then!

 

 

 

#FirstLineFriday #GiveawayContest #FreeDownloads

/ Marcia / 20 Comments

It’s been a couple of weeks, I know, and I apologize. I’m still trying to catch up, but mostly treading water right now. Lots going on in my life these days, even considering I’ve been trapped here at home for more than three months now. BUT. I was determined to get a #FirstLineFriday post out for you guys today, and voila! Here it is!

As always, the rules are simple:

  1. Be one of the first five people to email me before the game ends at 4:00pm, with the title and author of the correct book. 
  2. Do not reply here on the blog. Email only: marciameara16@gmail.com
  3. Honor System applies. No Googling, please.
  4. Submissions end at 4:00 P.M. EST, or when I receive 5 correct answers, whichever comes first.
  5. Winners who live in the U.S. may request a free download of any one of my books for themselves, or for someone of their choice. OR, if they’ve read all of the offered books, they may request a free download of my next publication.
  6. Winners who live elsewhere may request a mobi or PDF file of the same books, since, sadly, Amazon won’t let me gift you from the site.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for! Put on your thinking caps, because here  is today’s opening line:

“Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow.”

Remember, email answers only, please. Thanks! And now off I go to await your guesses. 

#FirstLineFriday Submissions Are Now Closed! Here’s the Answer to Our Quiz

/ Marcia / 32 Comments

Submissions for #FirstLineFriday are officially closed now. My thanks to all who emailed me with their guesses. I knew this one would be difficult, but I had hoped one or two of you would get it. Alas, no one did this week, so without further ado, here’s the answer to today’s quiz:

“The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand” is the opening line from The Invisible Man, a science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells in 1897.

Originally serialized in Pearson’s Weekly in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man the title refers to is Griffin, a scientist who has devoted himself to research into optics and invents a way to change a body’s refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light and thus becomes invisible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but fails in his attempt to reverse it. An enthusiast of random and irresponsible violence, Griffin has become an iconic character in horror fiction.

While its predecessors, The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau, were written using first-person narrators, Wells adopts a third-person objective point of view in The Invisible Man. The novel is considered very influential, and helped establish Wells as “the father of science fiction.”

 Wells said that his inspiration for the novella was “The Perils of Invisibility,” one of the Bab Ballads by W. S. Gilbert, which includes the couplet “Old Peter vanished like a shot/but then – his suit of clothes did not.”

The Invisible Man has a wealth of progeny. The novel was adapted into comic book form by Classics Illustrated in the 1950s, and by Marvel Comics in 1976. Many writers and filmmakers also created sequels to the story, something the novel’s ambiguous ending encourages. Over a dozen movies and television series are based on the novel, including a 1933 James Whale film and a 1984 series by the BBC. The novel has been adapted for radio numerous times, including a 2017 audio version starring John Hurt as the invisible man. The cultural pervasiveness of the invisible man has led to everything from his cameo in an episode of Tom and Jerry to the Queen song “The Invisible Man.”

EARLIEST FILM VERSION:
The Invisible Man is a 1933 American pre-Code science fiction horror film directed by James Whale. Based on H. G. Wells’ 1897 science fiction novel The Invisible Man and produced by Universal Pictures, the film stars Claude Rains, in his first American screen appearance, and Gloria Stuart. The film was written by R.C. Sherriff, along with Philip Wylie and Preston Sturges, though the latter duo’s work was considered unsatisfactory and they were taken off the project.

As an adaptation of a book, the film has been described as a “nearly perfect translation of the spirit of the tale” upon which it is based. The first film in Universal’s Invisible Man film series, it spawned a number of sequels and spin-offs which used ideas of an “invisible man” that were largely unrelated to Wells’ original story.

Rains portrayed the Invisible Man (Dr. Jack Griffin) mostly only as a disembodied voice. Rains is only shown clearly for a brief time at the end of the film, spending most of his on-screen time covered by bandages. In 2008, The Invisible Man was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

PERSONAL NOTE: The image of the man covered by bandages (so you could see him) is why the phrase “thickly gloved hand” made me think of this movie as soon as I read the opening line. While I haven’t read the book, I’ve seen the early version of the movie (not when it was released in 1933, though. Even I’M not that old! 😀 ) and several adaptations over time.

 

Buy The Invisible Man HERE

And that takes care of our #FirstLineFriday for this week. This was a tough one, and I’m not surprised that we didn’t have a winner. However, I hope you enjoyed taking a look at that extraordinarily long and comma-filled opening line, and contrasting it with what most of us would do today.

Thanks so much for taking part, and I’ll be back with another #FirstLineFriday quiz in a week or two. (Still catching up, here.) See you then!

#FirstLineFriday #GiveawayContest #FreeDownloads

/ Marcia / 18 Comments

It’s Friday again, and though I’m not yet back to my normal weekly schedule, today has worked well for me to present you with another #FirstLineFriday quiz. As you know, this quiz is designed to help us appreciate some of the best opening lines in literary history. From the classics of long ago to the latest best-sellers, no matter how old or how recent, everything is fair game on #FirstLineFriday. Let’s see how many of you recognize (or can guess at) this one.  

As always, the rules are simple:

  1. Be one of the first five people to email me before the game ends at 4:00pm, with the title and author of the correct book. 
  2. Do not reply here on the blog. Email only: marciameara16@gmail.com
  3. Honor System applies. No Googling, please.
  4. Submissions end at 4:00 P.M. EST, or when I receive 5 correct answers, whichever comes first.
  5. Winners who live in the U.S. may request a free download of any one of my books for themselves, or for someone of their choice. OR, if they’ve read all of the offered books, they may request a free download of my next publication.
  6. Winners who live elsewhere may request a mobi or PDF file of the same books, since, sadly, Amazon won’t let me gift you from the site.

Remember, guesses are free and I am the only one who’ll know if you guess incorrectly, so go for it! And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for! Put on your thinking caps, because here is today’s opening line:

“The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand.” 

Remember, email answers only, please. Thanks! And now off I go to await your guesses. 

#FirstLineFriday #GiveawayContest #FreeDownloads

/ Marcia / 27 Comments

It’s Friday again, which means you have another chance to try your hand at  #FirstLineFriday, our little quiz designed to help us appreciate some of the best opening lines in literary history. From the classics of long ago to the latest best-sellers, no matter how old or how recent, everything is fair game on #FirstLineFriday. Let’s see how many of you remember this one.  

As always, the rules are simple:

  1. Be one of the first five people to email me before the game ends at 4:00pm, with the title and author of the correct book. 
  2. Do not reply here on the blog. Email only: marciameara16@gmail.com
  3. Honor System applies. No Googling, please.
  4. Submissions end at 4:00 P.M. EST, or when I receive 5 correct answers, whichever comes first.
  5. Winners who live in the U.S. may request a free download of any one of my books for themselves, or for someone of their choice. OR, if they’ve read all of the offered books, they may request a free download of my next publication.
  6. Winners who live elsewhere may request a mobi or PDF file of the same books, since, sadly, Amazon won’t let me gift you from the site.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for! I’ve been easier on you this time, so put on your thinking caps, because here’s today’s opening line: 

“Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love.” 

Remember, email answers only, please. Thanks! And now off I go to await your guesses. 

 

#FirstLineFriday Submissions Are Now Closed! Here’s the Answer to Our Quiz, and the Names of Our Winners!

/ Marcia / 14 Comments

Submissions for #FirstLineFriday are officially closed now. My thanks to all who emailed me with their guesses. Today, we have two winners: Darlene Foster and Sarah Brentyn.  And I’ve decided to add a new feature to this Winner post: the link to each winner’s Author’s Page. I hope you’ll all enjoy being able to learn more about what these good folks have written and how to buy their books. And I also hope it inspires more of you to take a guess each week.

Darlene Foster’s Author Page can be found HERE.
Sarah Brentyn’s Author Page can be found HERE.

Congratulations to both of you, and I hope you enjoy your prizes.

And now, here’s the answer to today’s quiz:

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold” is the opening line of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a 1971 novel by Hunter S. Thompson and illustrated by Ralph Steadman.

The book is a roman à clef, rooted in autobiographical incidents. The story follows its protagonist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, as they descend on Las Vegas to chase the American Dream through a drug-induced haze, all the while ruminating on the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement.

The work is Thompson’s most famous book, and is noted for its lurid descriptions of illegal drug use and its early retrospective on the culture of the 1960s. Its popularization of Thompson’s highly subjective blend of fact and fiction has become known as gonzo journalism.

The novel first appeared as a two-part series in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971, and was published as a book in 1972. It was later adapted into a film of the same title in 1998 by Terry Gilliam, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro who portrayed Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, respectively. The novel lacks a clear narrative and frequently delves into the surreal, never quite distinguishing between what is real and what is only imagined by the characters.

NOTE: I wish I could tell you I’ve read the book or seen the movie, but even in 1971, it seemed a bit over the top for me. I do, however, think that opening line is a real grabber, and I’m glad we had some winners this week! 🙂 (And I must say, this cover certainly looks quite fitting. 😀 )


Buy Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas HERE

That wraps it up for this week, folks. Thanks so much for taking part, and I hope you’ll stay tuned for another #FirstLineFriday quiz next week. See you then!