This month, we’ve got bad weather, mutiny on the ark, hovering alone in space, and much more. To submit a first line, email booklifeeditor@booklife.com.
Amelia’s Gold
James D. Snyder
“Early on a Sunday afternoon, Amelia Sarah Beach, twenty-four, sat stiffly in her family’s upstairs drawing room massaging her fingers while gazing down warily at the square pianoforte, said to have once belonged to Johann Christian Bach.”
The Ancestor
Lee Matthew Goldberg
“One eye open, the other frozen shut. He knows what an eye is, but that other ‘I’ remains a mystery. Mind scooped out and left in ice. Words slowly return.”
The City That Barks And Roars
J.T. Bird
“It’s 1952, which is one thousand nine hundred and fifty-two years since mutiny aboard the ark.”
Cuppy and Stew
Eric Goodman
“His eyes, my mother thought, were smoky sunlight.”
Dance of the Deities: Searching for Our Once and Future Egalitarian Society
Patricia McBroom
“My world exploded in 1950, when I was 13.”
The Girl Behind the Wall: Edgar Allan Poe, the Girl, and the Mysterious Raven Murders
Bruce Wetterau
“A cold, dismal rain drenched Manhattan late this February night of 1849, driving most sensible people indoors in search of shelter and a warming fire.”
High Plains Redemption
G.P. Hutchinson
“A railcar rockin’ like this would’ve lulled me into a deep and untroubled sleep only a few weeks ago. This trip, however, it seems like every time I pull my Stetson down over my eyes, thinkin’ I might drift off, a dad-blame bump or jostle sends enough pain up my pine to yank me full awake again.”
Space Throne
Brian Corley
“Parr drummed his fingers along the arm of the captain’s chair of his Fano-class cruiser, the Aurora. For the first time in years, he’d tried to reenter the gates of Bilena Epso Ach—tried and failed, and now he hovered alone in space like jettisoned cargo.”
