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?  If you want to make your own post, feel free to use or edit the banner above, and follow the rules below:

• 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 (I cheat a little bit here *cough*)
• Finally… reveal the book!

If you’re using Twitter, don’t forget to use #FirstLinesFridays!

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Hello, reader!

It’s been… a week and I’m particularly glad that we’ve made it to Friday. I am ready for the weekend. But before it’s time to enjoy Saturday and Sunday, it’s time for another First Lines Friday! The book I’m featuring today is one I recently picked up at the library. I had the chance to read the first chapter or so and knew I wanted to finish it!

So we know the first few lines could pull me in. Let’s see if they do the same for you.

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The Line(s):

“New Year’s Eve 1999

The night was expected to bring tragedy.

Planes falling from the sky. Elevators plunging to earth. World markets collapsing.

A digital apocalypse.

But Y2K was an otherwise typical Friday night at the Blockbuster Video in Linden, New Jersey.”

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The Hints:

This is a new thriller released in March 2022.

It has multiple POVs…

… and it involves a murder eerily similar to one committed fifteen years ago.

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The Reveal:

The Night Shift by Alex Finlay

Click the cover to be taken to the Goodreads page

Goodreads Synopsis

It’s New Year’s Eve 1999. Y2K is expected to end in chaos: planes falling from the sky, elevators plunging to earth, world markets collapsing. A digital apocalypse. None of that happens. But at a Blockbuster Video in Linden, New Jersey, four teenage girls working the night shift are attacked. Only one survives. Police quickly identify a suspect who flees and is never seen again.

Fifteen years later, in the same town, four teenage employees working late at an ice cream store are attacked, and again only one makes it out alive.

Both surviving victims recall the killer speaking only a few final words… “Goodnight, pretty girl.”

In the aftermath, three lives intersect: the survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who’s forced to relive her tragedy; the brother of the original suspect, who’s convinced the police have it wrong; and the FBI agent, who’s determined to solve both cases. On a collision course toward the truth, all three lives will forever be changed, and not everyone will make it out alive.

Twisty, poignant, and redemptive, The Night Shift is a story about the legacy of trauma and how the broken can come out on the other side, and it solidifies Alex Finlay as one of the new leading voices in the world of thrillers.

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Did that first line capture your attention? Did it make you want to read the rest of the story? Let me know in the comments!

And, as always, happy reading!