Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.
Today I’ve chosen the opening from a book I will be reading soon; The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin which will be published on 1 February 2018.
Blurb
We have no need to protect ourselves from the bad sort
because we ARE the bad sort . . .’Down the murky alleyways of London, acts of unspeakable wickedness are taking place and the city’s vulnerable poor are disappearing from the streets. Out of these shadows comes Hester White, a bright young woman who is desperate to escape the slums by any means possible.
When Hester is thrust into the world of the aristocratic Brock family, she leaps at the chance to improve her station in life under the tutelage of the fiercely intelligent and mysterious Rebekah Brock.
But whispers from her past slowly begin to poison her new life and both she and Rebekah are lured into the most sinister of investigations, dragging them into the blackest heart of a city where something more depraved than either of them could ever imagine is lurking. . . Amazon
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Intro
The Morning Herald
Tuesday 13 September 1831
SUPPOSED DISAPPEARANCE IN THE BELVEDERE ROAD
This newspaper has taken note that the past month has been remarkable for the prevalence of cases where men, women and children are declared missing. Scarcely a week passes without the occurrence of an incident of this type
Such fears may indeed be well-founded and made but too evident by the following account, the particulars of which we are about to lay before our readers.
We study the tale of an unfortunate, known familiarly by the name Jonnie Hogget.
On Tuesday afternoon of the 6th inst. between five and six o’clock, Jonnie Hogget, fourteen years of age, was making his way from his place of industry at Mr Sturtevant’s, the soap boilers.
Master Hogget had been seen for some time loitering in the region of the Belvedere Road and it was in this quarter that the lad was last witnessed and then seen no more.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I’m one of those people who have got lost for hours reading historical newspapers so I love this opening, the language and phrasing absolutely setting the murky scene that is about to unfold.
What do you think? Would you keep reading?
