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 Friday and that means it’s time for feature another book in a First Lines Friday post! It’s been a rough week and I gotta work this weekend, but at least I have this little corner of the internet to take my mind off things. Today, I’m featuring a book that I’m hoping to lose myself in soon! I won it in a giveaway and it sounds like it’s going to be an intriguing read.

Let’s see if the first few lines can draw me into the story!

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The Line(s):

“The wind has stopped. I sway, suspended in place and holding on by a one-handed grip on the protrusion from the face of the cliff. It is jagged, eroded by the elements, causing the dense mesh of my gloves to dig into the skin of my palm.”

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The Hints:

This is a science fiction novel that was released in 2021.

It is self-published.

And it’s the first book in a series!

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Reveal:

The Journey of Artemis: EXODUS by Lamonte Louise

Click the cover to be taken to the Goodreads page

Amazon Synopsis

In the aftermath of a long ruthless interstellar war with an alien race called the Anpu, it has turned the Earth into a wasteland. With humankind left desperate, the Earth’s special force team chose Artemis to lead a mission into space to find another home for the humans and their alien allies. Joined by a crew of the best in the galaxy, Artemis begins an extreme journey of unexpected rivals, secret saboteurs, and mysterious hunters who aim to kill her. In this unique and captivating space opera sci-fi novel, join Artemis and her team as they risk it all on their world-spanning mission. Equipped with her resourcefulness and self-assurance, Artemis must find humankind another world or risk being swept into a whirlpool of mysteries.

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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!