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!

It is said to have happened, some moons ago, that three children and their jinn went on a perilous voyage in search of a cursed city covered entirely in brass. The trees were covered in brass, as were the houses, and the palace that stood tall in the middle of the island. And, perhaps the most peculiar thing of all, the people were covered in brass too.

Any ideas?

The Sahar Peninsula lies just beyond the horizon, but it isn’t the easiest place to get to. No maps will take you there, nor can it be charted by gazing up at the stars, or down at a compass…

Farah and her lizard jinn, Layla, are travelling through a vast desert – returning to their village home after their adventures with Amira and Leo in Moonchild: Voyage of the Lost and Found. Farah is desperate to see her sister again, but then she discovers a hidden city – full of people who have concealed their magic for many years. At first Farah thinks she has found new friends, but everything is not what it seems and dark magic lies just beneath the surface …

Have you read this? What did you think?