First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers 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?
- 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!
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Happy Friday readers everywhere! This week I’ve come to the realization that I am way behind on some of my commitments and that has really dragged me down. But I’m working on getting caught up and back in the groove – sooner rather than later – hopefully.
In the meantime, I’ve been reading this collection of short stories from a woman who reached out to me directly. Honestly, she reached out to me back in July and I’m finally diving into this collection of hers.
Ever since I started reading this collection, it’s all that’s been on my mind this week. I keep thinking back through each story and their individual importance in talking about life, creation, relationships, etc.
She incorporates so many different vantage points, cultures, and perspectives that it really put my mind in meditative mode. I haven’t read something in a long time that had this effect.
I love the collections in this assortment. Some have made me cry (repeatedly) and others made me smile. Some actually confused me and I had to ponder on them for a while. The first lines I’m including today is one of those short stories that I just can’t stop thinking about – it left a deep mark on my soul and will always be with me.
Now onto FIRST LINES FRIDAY!
“Even before I got really ill, I could feel the first stirrings of growth in my abdomen, just beneath my belly button. The sensation tugged on my thoughts, telling me to phone Mum, to tell her that something was… wrong. But I couldn’t. I’d been too absent, too adamant that I didn’t need her in my life. Besides, she’d just make a fuss, and there was nothing I hated more than her sympathy.”
First Lines Friday reveal…….
Umbilical by Teika Marija Smits
Available Now on Kindle Unlimited!
The excerpt above is from the namesake piece “Umbilical” in the collection.
Teika Marija Smits is one of the finest short story writers to emerge on the genre scene in recent years. Her storytelling relies on keen observation of the world and people around her interpreted through the lens of her imagination, dancing between science fiction, realism, and horror. Umbilical features selected stories from her output so far alongside several new stories, published here for the first time.
An AI repairman keeps his true purpose hidden; Baba Yaga sets up home close to a black hole; a mother and daughter share a unique bond which none can sunder; a painter literally invests body and soul in her work; a plague of flies search for their Madonna; Sherlock Holmes calls upon his psychic cousin Isadora for help with an intriguing case…
Contents:
Icarus Dreams
Death of the Grapevine
His Birth
The Wife That Never Was
Umbilical
How to Honour a Beginning
Minotaur/Mindtour
Delphine as Daedalus
The Case of the High Pavement Ghosts
Girls’ Night Out
ATU334 the Wise
Our Lady of Flies
The Green Man
A Piece of Fabric the Size of a Pin
Machina in Deo
The Eyes of the Goddess Herself
A Survival Guide for the Contemporary Princess
This Little Piggy
Tough Love
The Sun is God
Star Making at Sellafield
The November Room or Leaving the Labyrinth
High quality stories that defy both genre and gender boundaries.
Looking for book recs…
Adventures in Literature 
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