Welcome to another First Line Friday, hosted by Hoarding Books. The lovely Kate Breslin has made given us some of the best historical romance novels in the CBA over the past five years. With a focus on the World Wars, Kate has brought both eras alive for readers, on the homefront and in the trenches on the battlefront. Her most recent offering, Far Side of the Sea, commences in the closing stages of WWI with Lieutenant Colin Mabry – readers will recognise him from High as the Heavens – struggling from injuries and a broken heart.
If you love either era, Kate’s books are must reads, so I’m super happy to be offering a giveaway of Far Side of the Sea, thanks to Bethany House Publishers! Enter below…
First Line
Short but impactful. How is he suffocating? What is going to save him? I love first lines that make you truly anticipate what’s coming next!
In spring 1918, Lieutenant Colin Mabry, a British soldier working with MI8 after suffering injuries on the front, receives a message by carrier pigeon. It is from Jewel Reyer, the woman he once loved and who saved his life–a woman he believed to be dead. Traveling to France to answer her urgent summons, he desperately hopes this mission will ease his guilt and restore the courage he lost on the battlefield.
Colin is stunned, however, to discover the message came from Jewel’s half sister, Johanna. Johanna, who works at a dovecote for French Army Intelligence, found Jewel’s diary and believes her sister is alive in the custody of a German agent. With spies everywhere, Colin is skeptical of Johanna, but as they travel across France and Spain, a tentative trust begins to grow between them.
When their pursuit leads them straight into the midst of a treacherous plot, danger and deception turn their search for answers into a battle for their lives.
Please share the first line from a book you are reading, enter the giveaway below, and have a wonderful weekend…
A Florida girl who migrated to the beautiful Pacific Northwest, Kate Breslin lives on a small bay in Washington State with her guitarist husband and family. Kate has written travel articles, published award-winning poetry, and her fourth novel, Far Side of the Sea, released with Bethany House Publishers in March of 2019. When she’s not writing inspirational fiction or spending time with author friends, she’s reading books, watching anything Jane Austen on BBC, or following hubby John’s musical career as his #1 fan. An avid nature lover, she enjoys long walks in Washington State’s beautiful woodlands or working in her rose garden. Kate’s also a traveler–she and John have toured much of the U.S. and with her intrepid mom as traveling companion, Kate’s also been abroad–Paris, Munich, Rome, Pompeii, Athens, and Barcelona, just to name a few. She’s always looking for the next story idea!
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Visit Kate’s website and blog
Buy at Amazon: Far Side of the Sea or Koorong
April 6, 2019 at 2:28 pm
TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAILROAD, APRIL 1878
Tumbleweeds scraped across the Colorado prairie as Lizzie looked out the window of the Pullman railcar, rushing along the rickety tracks too fast, too far, ever farther away from her family. Gold Digger: The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor by Rebecca Rosenberg
April 6, 2019 at 2:45 pm
My first lines are friom The Artful Match by Jennifer Delamere:
Venezuala, August, 1881
Julia Bernay Stephenson watched as her father carefully stirred honey into his coffee. For years she had thought he was dead, and now, even though it had been a week since she’d found him alive, she still looked at him with wondering eyes.
Loved Katie’s book!
April 7, 2019 at 7:48 am
Thanks you, Paula!! 🙂
April 6, 2019 at 3:18 pm
Happy Friday! I’m sharing from Up from the Sea by Amanda Dykes on my blog today. This is the first line from my current read, In the Shadow of Croft Towers by Abigail Wilson:
“I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had never learned the truth.”
April 6, 2019 at 4:02 pm
The stench was unmistakable. ~ For Such a Time by Kate Breslin 🙂
April 7, 2019 at 7:47 am
Thanks, Stacey! I hope you enjoy reading the story! 🙂
April 6, 2019 at 5:20 pm
My first line is from Ronie Kendig’s Embers, Book 1 of Abiassa’s Fire.
“It was said the very soul of the land burned within her.”
April 8, 2019 at 3:51 pm
Sammy!!! Love seeing you here. Enjoy Ronie’s fantasy novels, I trust 🙂
April 6, 2019 at 9:31 pm
Nursing scrubs? Check. White sneakers? Check. Keycard? Check. Calm, even breathing? Nope. [Never Let Go – Elizabeth Goddard]
April 7, 2019 at 12:23 am
How do you say goodbye to a friend? From Bat and the End of Everything.
April 7, 2019 at 12:59 am
“Elizabeth took a breath, breaking an intense hour of concentration” from The Lacemaker by Laura Frantz.
April 7, 2019 at 3:31 am
Bar Harbor, Maine – 1940
Nessie McDonald rushed down the dark, steep road toward the booming hiss of the surf pounding. ~ Recipe for a Husband by Anne Greene
April 7, 2019 at 4:32 am
Today I’m sharing the first lines from What If It’s True? by Charles Martin:
“He is stumbling now. A trail of blood marks His serpentine path on the narrow street out of the city.”
https://moments-of-beauty.blogspot.com/2019/04/first-line-fridays-what-if-its-true-by.htm
April 8, 2019 at 3:50 pm
Beauty in the Binding » Have you enjoyed it? I’m keen to read it.
April 8, 2019 at 9:38 pm
It is excellent so far. Completely different from his fiction that I have read. It’s made me cry a few times. He pierces the heart and points you to Jesus for healing and freedom. I can only take one chapter a day… but it is so good. He brings out connections between stories in the Bible that I’ve never noticed before. Definitely worth reading.
April 7, 2019 at 7:44 am
Rel, thank you! I’m thrilled you chose Far Side of the Sea for First Line Friday!
Blessings! XO Kate
April 8, 2019 at 3:49 pm
Kate Breslin » How could I not?! Now to read it once my INSPY Award reading is complete!
April 7, 2019 at 11:52 am
July 1885
Newport
“Wonderful news, darling. I have it on good authority from none other than Mr. Ward McAllister that the Duke of Montrose has taken a special interest in you.” ~ Flights of Fancy by Jen Turano
April 7, 2019 at 12:33 pm
For some time now they had been suspicious of him. Spies had monitored his movements, reporting to the priests, and in the tribal councils his advice against going to war with those beyond the bend had been ignored.
James MIchener’s Chesapeake ~1583
April 8, 2019 at 8:41 am
Thomas’s mother had died when he was very young, well before the boating accident which had claimed Barric’s own parents.
Shadow among the Sheaves
Naomi Stephens
April 9, 2019 at 12:37 am
Wonderful news, darling. Flights of Fancy by Jen Turano
April 10, 2019 at 2:38 pm
“Every wave in that big old blue sea is a story.” WHOSE WAVES THESE ARE by Amanda Dykes. It is a beautiful captivating novel. Thank you for the opportunity to win Far Side of the Sea. Definitely near the top of my TBR List!
April 12, 2019 at 1:23 am
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” 😜
April 13, 2019 at 2:21 am
“I don’t know what I expected from a halfway house for mental patients, but when I opened the front door, nothing prepared me for the fingerprints.” – The Wind Will Howl (Raleigh Harmon Series) by Sibella Giorello
April 13, 2019 at 8:13 am
Brett Fraser couldn’t move his neck. From – Santa Fe Sunrise by Tanya Stowe