#FirstLineFriday ~  First Lines That Grab Your Attention #Reading #Books

First Line Friday is a weekly feature for book lovers, hosted by Reading Is My SuperPower. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

‘At first, white hot agony.

She can’t think. Can’t react.

The ice-cold water paralyses every muscle.’

A luxury resort. Three missing women. One body.

When young London professional Alex Evans is informed that his sister’s body has been pulled from an icy lake in Northern Lapland, he assumes his irresponsible sister accidentally drowned. He travels to the wealthy winter resort where Vicky worked as a tour-guide and meets Agatha Koskinen, the detective in charge. Agatha is a no-nonsense single mother of three who already thinks there’s more to Vicky’s case than meets the eye.

As the two form an unlikely alliance, Alex also begins to suspect the small town where his sister lived and died is harbouring secrets. It’s not long before he learns that three other women have gone missing from the area in the past and that his sister may have left him a message.

On the surface, Koppe, Lapland is a winter wonderland. But in this remote, frozen place, death seems only ever a heartbeat away.

Jo Spain is a full-time writer and screenwriter. Her first novel, With Our Blessing, was one of seven books shortlisted in the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition and her first psychological thriller, The Confession, was a number one bestseller in Ireland. Jo co-wrote the ground-breaking television series Taken Down and she’s now working on multiple European television projects. Jo lives in Dublin with her husband and their four young children.