First Lines Friday – 30 December 2022

First Lines Friday is a weekly feature 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?

Here’s how it works!

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!

FLF 1

My entire life’s work rests on the outcome of this match.

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Carrie Soto is Back is my current read and quite possibly my last read of this year. I’m a big fan of Taylor Jenkins Reid and I am really enjoying this book so far. Carrie Soto is a great character and even though I have no interest in tennis, I am completely hooked on this book.

Title: Carrie Soto is Back

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Genre: Historical Fiction

Age Category: Adult

Publication Date: August 30, 2022

Number of Pages: 369

Buy the Book: Amazon, Indigo, Book Depository

Add on Goodreads or The StoryGraph

About

Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular.

By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.

But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan.

At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the ‘Battle-Axe’ anyway. Even if her body doesn’t move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.

In spite of it all: Carrie Soto is back, for one epic final season. In this riveting and unforgettable novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid tells a story about the cost of greatness and a legendary athlete attempting a comeback.