First Lines Friday

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!

Helena grasped the bars of the domed birdcage resting on her lap until her fingers ached. Mr Westcott was staring into the cage with an odd kind of intent that danced a shiver across the back of her neck. His rake-thin frame leaned forward across the desk, his eyes narrowing. “You omitted to say in your acceptance letter that you were bringing … a … bird,” he said, his sallow cheeks tightening as he glanced first at Helena’s father, and then at Helena.

Any ideas?

I loved A.M Howell’s debut middle-grade, The Garden of Lost Secrets and am really looking forward to her new book, Mystery of the Night Watchers which is due to be released on 8th July. I really want to read this one before then.

Goodreads Synopsis:

JUNE, 1905.

Helena and her parrot, Orbit, are swept off to Cambridge when her father is appointed clock-winder to one of the wealthiest men in England. There is only one rule: the clocks must never stop. But Helena discovers the house of one hundred clocks holds many mysteries; a ghostly figure, strange notes and disappearing winding keys… Can she work out its secrets before time runs out?

Have you read this? What did you think?