Opening Hooks

There really is nothing better than a really great opening hook in a novel - it piques the interest and curiousity and begs you to read more immediately. It lets you know that you've chosen a good book. And it gives you a bit of an idea of what you are in store for.

Here are some of my all-time favourite opening lines. Sometimes the books themselves unfortunately don't live up the the first line, but thankfully most often they do.

• "If it had not rained on a certain May morning, Valancy Stirling's whole life would have been entirely different." From L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle.


• "Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." From J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcere's Stone.


• "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." From C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader.


• "Ross Wakeman succeeded the first time he killed himself, but not the second or the third." From Jodi Picoult's Second Glance


• "It wasn't a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance." From Diana Gabaldon's Cross-Stitch/Outlander.


• "People usually start life by being born." From Walter Moers' The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear.


• "The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world." From Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.


• "I might as well say, right from the jump: it wasn't my usual kind of job." From Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book.


• "I am what they call in out village "one who has not died yet" - a widow, eighty years old." From Lisa See's Snow-Flower and the Secret Fan.


• "My father had a face that could stop a clock." From Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.

(While I'm at it, check out the first sentence of Anne of Green Gables - it's an entire paragraph!)