You Have My Attention: The Harwood Spellbook First Lines
Stephanie Burgis's reimagined, magical, and gender role-swapped regency fantasy novella series is honestly one of my favorites. They're sweet and fluffy and a truly delight to read. But as with any author, Burgis has to catch her readers with those first few sentences. So let's see how she does it!
The evening of the Spring Equinox was cool and balmy, just as the weather wizards had--for once!--reliably predicted. The glittering guest list for the Harwoods' annual ball was exactly to Amy Standish's design.
As she prepared to descend into the lake that gently rippled, reflecting the full moon and stars, outside the grandeur of Harwood House, Amy knew she had organized the most important night of her life to absolute perfection. The only tiny, insignificant task left to do was to propose marriage to the right man by the end of this evening. Then she would finally win everything she had ever dreamed of, and it would be utterly perfect. She knew it.
-- Spellswept
Of course, a sensible woman would never have accepted the invitation in the first place.
To attend a week-long house party filled with bickering gentleman magicians, ruthless cutthroat lady politicians, and worst of all, my own infuriating ex-fiancé? Scarcely two months after I had scandalized all of our most intimate friends by jilting him?
Utter madness.
-- Snowspelled
It was bad enough to be deprived of my new husband before our wedding night. It was utterly unjust to be tormented by nightmares weeks afterward as I slept, still alone, in our marital bed.
For the ninth morning in a row, I woke up gasping and clawing at my throat, fighting to yank piercing thorns out from my skin...thorns that, of course, existed nowhere but in my dreams.
-- Thornbound
Dressing for a ball would always be a challenge for any lady who found it easier to analyze--from memory--an obscure spell from two centuries ago than to remember which sleeve lengths were currently fashionable across the nation. But dressing for a ball at Angland's first women's college of magic, where at least half the dancers were certain to add competitive spellwork to their costume and the enigmatic local fey were likely to make an appearance? That raised the standards--and the stakes--enormously.
-- Moontangled
There was this much to be said, Honoria supposed, for comprehensive public and personal ruin: once all that she'd ever cared about had been ripped from her grasp, she no longer had anything left to fear.
-- Spellcloaked
There was a fine line between ambition and foolishness, and I had spent most of my life walking it. Still, as looked around the crowded, fey-lit dining tables at Thornfell College of Magic for Young Women on the eve of our second Winter Solstice, I was forced to admit that--just this once--I might have aimed my goals a bit too high.
