Hi and welcome to First Lines Friday – #Orentober edition!
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?
I love this feature, and I thought it would be a fun way to shine the spotlights on some fab Orenda books. So here goes:
It was an accident. An unfortunate turn of events. It was an misunderstanding, a delicate imbalance between push and shove. And thus the neck broke like a plank snapping in two.
As I was going through my extensive Orenda collection in search of the perfect opening lines, I came across this one and had to admit I’d forgotten it, although reading it, I can remember the feeling of being in for a treat. Can you guess the book???
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Which Orenda powerhouse wrote these ominous opening lines?
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It is…. a he, and he’s been called the funniest writer in Europe by the NY Times…
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And this is a line from a wickedly funny book indeed…
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The title alone gives pause…
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Featuring an undercover policeman…
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On the hottest beach of Northern Europe…
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It is:

This is the blurb and you can find my review here, if you’d like to know more:
Jan Nyman, the ace detective of the covert operations unit of the National Central Police, is sent to a sleepy seaside town to investigate a mysterious death. Nyman arrives in the town dominated by a bizarre holiday village – the ‘hottest beach in Finland’. The suspect: Olivia Koski, who has only recently returned to her old hometown. The mission: find out what happened, by any means necessary.
With a nod to Fargo, and dark noir, Palm Beach, Finland is both a page-turning thriller and a black comedy about lust for money, fleeing dreams and people struggling at turning points in their lives – chasing their fantasies regardless of reason.
Thanks for stopping by! What do you make of these first lines, yay or nay? Let me know below!

My husband is obsessed with first lines. When I start a new book he often asks me to read the first line/paragraph to him or reads me the first line in his book. I think this is after listening to a writing podcast 🙂
I never used to pay much attention to a first line but it actually says a lot. These days when I’m not sure which book I want to read first I’ll read a few first paragraphs and decide based on those.
I thought I recognized that line! xD I love his humor and I actually got a physical copy of this one for the cover pretty… With me not reading romance I have a serious shortage in pink covers, so I thought it would be a perfect excuse to get a copy of this one. 😉
Such a brilliant cover! It was what drew me to the book in the first place 😄