First Line Friday – 10 February 2023

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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

In the heart of Scarlet Gang territory, a burlesque club was the place to be. 

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These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

These Violent Delights

This is one of my current reads and it is so good so far! It’s a bit outside of my comfort zone but I need to finish it this weekend because it is so good!

Book Details

 Title: These Violent Delights

Author: Chloe Gong

Genre: Fantasy

Age Category: Young Adult

Publication Date:  November 17, 2020

Number of Pages: 464 Pages 

Buy the Book: Amazon

Add On Goodreads 

About

The year is 1926, and Shanghai hums to the tune of debauchery.

A blood feud between two gangs runs the streets red, leaving the city helpless in the grip of chaos. At the heart of it all is eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, a former flapper who has returned to assume her role as the proud heir of the Scarlet Gang—a network of criminals far above the law. Their only rivals in power are the White Flowers, who have fought the Scarlets for generations. And behind every move is their heir, Roma Montagov, Juliette’s first love…and first betrayal.

But when gangsters on both sides show signs of instability culminating in clawing their own throats out, the people start to whisper. Of a contagion, a madness. Of a monster in the shadows. As the deaths stack up, Juliette and Roma must set their guns—and grudges—aside and work together, for if they can’t stop this mayhem, then there will be no city left for either to rule.

Perfect for fans of The Last Magician and Descendant of the Crane, this heart-stopping debut is an imaginative Romeo and Juliet retelling set in 1920s Shanghai, with rival gangs and a monster in the depths of the Huangpu River.

Copy of Divide

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