First Line Friday of February 28th, 2025
DeeDee,
First Line Friday 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?
- 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.
- Finally… reveal the book!
Note that I do this feature once in two weeks instead of every Friday. Alright, let's get this started!
Here is the first line of 2/28/25:
Captain Cornelius Fernley had never been to Carlton House, the favored residence of the prince regent.
Do you know which book this line is from? Scroll down to find out!
Keep going. You’re getting there!
Almost there...
TADA
The Captain and The Spy by Angela E. Johnson
Synopsis:
When love is waylaid by a highwayman, who knew it would be shrouded in espionage?
Captain Cornelius Fernley has spent the last five years of his life entrenched in a world of espionage as he works to uncover a coup against the Prince Regent. The stage is set at a grand house party hosted by the Marquess of Blackwell, a man who is deeply established as one of the leaders of a group known as the Cavaliers.
Lady Elise Wells is determined to prove herself a valuable asset to the Home Office. As this is her first assignment, she is far from the perfect spy, but she has one virtue no one else on her team can claim. She has somehow captured the affections of Captain Cornelius Fernley, and he seems to be their biggest obstacle to searching the castle at night.
Neither Cornelius nor Elise knows that the other is an agent. Yet, as they are thrown together throughout the party, they discover a growing affection that if not restrained could prove a distraction to their assignments, resulting in mistakes. In this line of work, any misstep could prove disastrous, and the agent might pay the ultimate price with their life.
Captain Fernley and the Spy is a standalone page-turning adventure where love and duty collide amidst the clandestine affairs of Society. Join Cornelius and Elise as they discover the secrets that lie beyond the ballroom in this captivating tale of suspense, sacrifice, and unexpected closed-door passion.
Description from Goodreads.