First Line Friday {3}: Hooked in One Line!

Happy Friday, bookworms, and welcome to First Line Friday!

The rules are simple: grab the closest book to you (or one from your ever-growing TBR pile), flip to the first page, and share its opening sentence in the comments.

This fun weekly event is hosted by Reading is my Superpower: Link-Up—and a huge shoutout to One Book More where I first spotted it! The goal? Hook your fellow readers using only the book’s very first line before you reveal the title.

Want to play along? It’s incredibly easy:

• Grab a book: Pick up your current read or a random choice from your shelves.

• Share the line: Copy the first few sentences in the comments, but keep the title a secret at first to tease us!

• The Reveal: Finally… let us know what book it is!

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Welcome to The Carolina Files — a darkly funny supernatural series where magic has a mean streak.

In movies, witches have fun and magic is easy. Whisper a spell, fire up a candle or two, then flutter your eyelashes at some sexy beast waiting in the wings. Bingo. Problem solved.

Honey, that’s not my life. Conjuring skills? Not even. Though I did once summon a pretty magnificent herd of frogs. My lovelife? The only sexy beast waiting for me is the kind that rips your eyeballs out.

My family, the Whitlows, are basically the supernatural Corleones of the Carolinas. Think The Godfather, only witchy. We run a magical safe house disguised as a quaint inn, backed by more old money than sense. My sisters are more likely to start an apocalypse than prevent one.

So who gets stuck with the messes – both magical and mundane? That would be me, Tula Whitlow, because I’m just competent enough to be useful and way too lazy to argue. Now I have an FBI agent on my doorstep with a case way above my pay grade. An upscale vineyard with secrets darker than my Aunt Ruby’s magic. Ancient curses, old gods, and the kind of chaos that makes me want to quit and move to Florida. Well, maybe not Florida, but you get the idea.

Look, I know what you’re thinking – why not call in the magical equivalent of SWAT? Trust me, in this town, my family IS the nuclear option. Heaven help us all.

First in the wickedly funny Carolina Files series, perfect for fans of the hit TV shows Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and books from Grady Hendrix, Seanan McGuire, T.Kingfisher, Darynda Jones, and Christopher Moore.