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:
Before they found the girl in the alley, I found a book in the foyer at work.
One sentence and all my spidey senses lit up! And it continues:
The girl would be found dead, her neck bloody, her body covered with a red coat, and with no obvious clues as to who had left her that way. The book was brand new, unopened, wrapped in brown paper, and had a single clue as to who had left it there.
A note inside the first page:
Stella, this will tell you everything.
I’m sure that if you’ve read this book, that name alone will give it away, but if you haven’t, can you guess the book???
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Which Orenda powerhouse wrote this opening line?
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It is…. a she, and she is one of my favourite authors, Orenda and otherwise…
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She is a theatre usher, which, incidentally, is also where her latest book is set…
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And the book this opening line is from, was her first psychological thriller…
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It is:

This is the blurb and you can find my review here, if you’d like to know more:
Pregnant Victoria Valbon was brutally murdered in an alley three weeks ago – and the killer hasn’t been caught.
Tonight is Stella McKeever’s final radio show. The theme is secrets. She wants yours, and in exchange she will share some of hers. The ones she knows. But she doesn’t know everything.
Why has Stella’s mother, Elizabeth, finally returned fourteen years after leaving her with a neighbour? Is Stella’s new love, Tom, a man who likes to play games, exciting … or dangerous?
And who is the mysterious man calling the radio station to say he knows who killed Victoria? Tonight Stella’s final show may reveal the biggest secret of all…
With echoes of the chilling Play Misty for Me, Call Me Star Girl is a taut, emotive and all-consuming psychological thriller that plays on our deepest fears, providing a stark reminder that stirring up dark secrets from the past can be deadly…
Thanks for stopping by! What do you make of this first line, yay or nay? Let me know below!

LOVE this book and LOVE anything she writes in general. <3
Me too 💜