The first line of a story, we’re told, must hook the reader. Implied is that the reader will not buy the book if the first line isn’t great. From Vultures to Family It’s First Line Friday. These entries are from Amazon, my personal library, or other online booksellers. Do these first lines hook you? Do you want to read more? The black silhouette of a vulture circles overhead, its large dark shape contrasting with the bright afternoon sky. The Outlands by Tyler Edwards Prologue-About to Catch Fire Phillip Chestnut didn’t understand why things had started to go sideways. Effacement by Hieronymus Hawkes So you’re the person responsible for the death of the number one,” the burly man in a security uniform tells me.  All the Whys of Delilah’s Demise by Neve Maslakovic When we were new, Rosa and I were mid-store, on the magazines table side, and could see through more than half the window. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro The swallows skipped like flat stones across the surface of the infinity pool, their wings spread, and a lone woman in a gauzy beach coverup—what she might have called a kaftan if that word didn’t sound so matronly—watched […]