Welcome to Friday Firsts – a weekly meme created by Tenacious Reader. First paragraphs. First impressions. A new favourite?
| Friday Firsts: August 21 |
The Court of Broken Knives
Book One of Empires of Dust
by Anna Smith Spark
Fantasy | 470 Pages | Published by Harper Voyager in 2017
| First Paragraphs |
Knives.
Knives everywhere. Coming down like rain.
Down to close work like that, men wrestling in the mud, jabbing at each other, too tired to care anymore. Just die and get it over with. Half of them fighting with their guts hanging out of their stomachs, stinking of shit, oozing pink and red and white. Half-dead men lying in the filth. Screaming. A whole lot of things screaming.
Impossible to tell who’s who anymore. Mud and blood and shadows and that’s it. Kill them! Kill them all! Keep killing until we’re all dead. The knife twists and jabs and the man he’s fighting falls sideways, all the breath going out of him with a sigh of relief. Another there behind. Gods, his arms ache. His head aches. Blood in his eyes. He twists the knife again and thrusts with a broken-off sword and that man too dies. Fire explodes somewhere to the left. White as maggots. Silent as maggots. Then shrieks as men burn.
Amazon | Book Depository | Goodreads
| First Impressions |
The Court of Broken Knives has been on my TBR ever since it came out in 2017 and, after several inordinately busy years, I have finally gotten around to reading it.
Lyrical, beautiful, bloody, grim and battle weary through and through, it will come as no surprise to those who visit my blog regularly that this style of writing is exactly my cup of tea. And, after those evocative, visceral opening paragraphs, I can’t quite believe I waited this long!
What are you currently reading? What were your first impressions?
Books by Proxy 
Yes, this book is very powerful, verty bloody and really quite compelling. I struggled a little with the first few pages and actually thought it wasn’t going to be for me, and yet, even as the thought was occuring I was becoming hooked. Beautiful and brutal.
Lynn 😀
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The writing style seems quite different to so many in this genre too. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how it all pans out! 😀
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It’s a great feeling to finally open that book you’ve had for ages to find out it has been worth the wait!
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Definitely worth the wait!! I seem to be reading so many books like that at the moment! 😀
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Best first chapter I’ve ever read. Great book too.
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It’s absolutely amazing. So very impressed! 😀
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I’ve heard lots of bloggers raving about this series and I haven’t read it either. That opening really grabs you though, right?
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I could almost hear my heart thunping in my chest reading it! I can’t even remember another opening that grabbed me as quick as this one did 😀
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