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!
The Deer people had no need of a stone circle: the mountains marked the turning of the year more accurately than anything humankind could construct. When the sun rose behind the tallest peak, pointing a finger of light across the upland plateau directly into the mouth of the sacred cave, it was midwinter.
Any ideas?
I recently read Midwinter Burning by Tanya Landman and loved it, so wanted to try some of her other middle-grade books. I found this one whilst in London, and am really looking forward to reading it, especially as it’s set in the Stone Age.
Goodreads Synopsis:
Oak, son of the Deer clan chief, hopes that this summer he will finally be allowed to join the hunt and make his father proud of him. But this year is not like other years – the rains have failed, his father has fallen out with the Bear chief, and everyone is mistrustful of the new creatures that have been spotted near their encampment: horses. Then Oak becomes separated from his clan with only a young horse for company, and it seems that surely the worst has happened. But perhaps not all animals are prey. Perhaps Horse can be clan too.
Book Craic 
This does sound like a good book. I’m heading to Ireland next week. I alway enjoy going to the bookstores there to see what they have which is different from American children’s books. http://Www.monicaganz.com
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Enjoy your visit to Ireland. I was born in Ireland, but am now living in England. There are so many wonderful Irish authors – I hope you find some books you enjoy.
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Oh, thank you. That’s wonderful!! Do you have a favorite bookstore in Dublin? Any authors I should look up? I’m currently writing picture books and working on an MG. Would love to read some MG authors in Ireland. One animation my children and I used to watch was Rupert Bear. Do you know it?
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I’ve got a few must-buy Irish MG authors: Sinead O’Hart, Celine Kiernan, Padraig Kenny, Sophie Kirtley, Eve McDonnell and Catherine Doyle. I did a short blog post where you can see their books: https://bookcraic.blog/2021/10/17/irish-book-week/
Good luck with your picture books and MG.
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I went to your posts. THANK YOU, great list of Irish Authors. Tried to leave you a message there TWICE, it wasn’t showing up. Maybe they are in moderation. Your reply wanted me to add my name/email, etc, but I was already logged into WP. Anyhow, sending msg here, so you receive it.
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I’ve never read any Tanya Landman, but I feel like I really need to!
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Not me but I loved her writing style and Horse Boy really appealed to me as it’s set in prehistoric times.
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