I finally have time on a Tuesday to make another First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday
post! Yaaaay!

For those of you who don’t know, First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesdays are:

• Every Tuesday Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where she shares the first paragraph or (a few) of a book she is reading or thinking about reading soon.

For more of my daily themed memes, you can go here.

The book I have chosen for this First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday is Kirsty McKay’s The Assassin Game, which will be available for purchase on August 2nd of this year!

It is about 4:00 a.m. when they come for me. I am already awake, strung out on the fear that they will come, and the fear that they won’t. When I finally hear the click of the latch on the dormitory door, I have only a second to brace myself before they’re on me.
“Do as we say.”
A rasping voice, sudden and violent in my ear.
I swallowed my scream as a hood—a pillowcase?—is shoved over my head. A large hand clamps across my mouth and nose, mashing my lip against my upper teeth, and I taste blood. Weight presses down on my pajamaed chest, and panic rises as I wriggle a little to clear my nostrills to breathe. Silently, I’m lifted from my bed. Efficiently. They’ve done this before.

I really enjoyed this in medias res (“into the middle of things” in Classical Latin) opening to the book! It throws you right into the center of the action, rather than building up to it. I do sometimes enjoy a good build up, but more often than not, I become at least a little bored with the slow type set-up of a story’s setting and characters.

When a book begins in medias res, it generally grabs a hold of my attention a lot quicker, and a lot more effectively. They book would have to be entirely out of my range of interest, or just plain terrible for me to not get hooked by a beginning which starts right in the middle of things.

The first paragraph, combined with the book summary (which can be found in my past blog post or on Goodreads), make me very excited to get to this book! Boarding schools in England and murders? Bring it on! I’ll probably finish it in a day!

Pre-order on Amazon.ca: The Assassin Game
Pre-order on Amazon.com: The Assassin Game
Pre-order on Amazon.co.uk: The Assassin Game