Guess the opening lines...

[kinkytoes]

Hi all, hope it's ok to start this here.

Thought it might be fun and stretch the old grey matter a bit.

I'll attach a shot of some opening lines and whoever guesses correctly post their own?

We could all just post pics but then we might lose track. I don't mind.

Let me know what you think (of the idea, and the opening lines here - hopefully started off with an easyish one but let me know if any clues are needed!)

If it's being done elsewhere please someone direct me 😊

Yes I agree. And although the story was implausible, somehow it was convincing.
I must try some of Enid Bagmold’s adult fiction. I believe she had quite a following but as far as I know she isn’t read much these days.

I vaguely recalled that she was a contemporary of Vera Brittain. Looking her up, I see that her brother Ralph Bagnold was interesting too, in a completely different field.

(Have never read National Velvet, but of course was aware of the film with Elizabeth Taylor.)

ahhhhhh Jay McInerney - Brightness Falls. Love some of the writing in that

And this one – gutted I didn't recognise it. Or rather I did (unlike a lot of the books on this thread that so many PPs know!) but I couldn't place it – it was nagging at me so I looked it up. This is a novel no one has ever heard of but I found it bewitching and so so memorable, even years later.

(not put the answer in as I cheated so someone else may get it!)

I don’t think anyone has answered this one yet. It’s Jude the Obscure.

“It may be only blackmail,” said the man in the taxi hopefully. The fog was like a saffron blanket soaked in ice-water. It had hung over London all day and at last was beginning to descend. The sky was yellow as a duster and the rest was a granular black, overprinted in grey and lightened by occasional slivers of bright fish colour as a policeman turned in his wet cape. Already the traffic was at an irritable crawl. By dusk it would be stationary. To the west the Park dripped wretchedly and to the north the great railway terminus slammed and banged and exploded hollowly about its affairs. Between lay winding miles of butter-coloured stucco in every conceivable state of repair.

Correct. I'm rereading the Calloway trilogy before reading the new one (so I suppose it's not a trilogy now, but whatever the correct word is for a four-novel cycle...)

‘All day it has been windy…..’ and “It may only be blackmail….” both sound intriguing. Looking forward to finding out what the names of the books.

@clary I read it as a teenager and was completely bewitched by it. I’ve put off rereading in case it’s not how I remembered but I’d pulled it out of my bookshelf today which is why I put it up here. However there is no way I would have recognised it from the opening lines!

Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham.
@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I have a sense that we share a similar sense in literature!

Very likely! I love that book.

I didn't recognise the opening, but I love Tiger in the Smoke, amazingly atmospheric book, excellent characters.

I think I first came across it as a Radio 4 play in the 1980s. It led me to read her entire output. It's a controversial opinion, but Albert Campion is worth a hundred Lord Peter Wimseys. (Having said that, I agree with those above who said how good Murder Must Advertise is - probably my favourite Wimsey book. Exasperating as he is, I do enjoy the books.)

Anyway, here's another one. I'd have liked to quote more because this might not be enough, but the next sentence woud have given it away. Let's see how you all get on with just this.

A bell clanged. Brazen, insistent, maddening. Through the quiet corridors came the din of it, making hideous the peace of the morning. From each of the yawning windows of the little quadrangle the noise poured out on to the still, sunlit garden where the grass was grey yet with dew.

I guess:

Miss Pym Disposes

Allingham and Sayers both started out with slightly Bertie Wooster type poshos who they developed into more rounded characters. Campion has the advantage of 'living' through a longer period, I love the one where the dastardly plan to bring the nation to its knees is basically quantitative easing. Love Magersfontein Lugg.

Oh, very good! That's the one. The book you mention is Traitor's Purse, I think.

yes, thank you. Could NOT remember the name.

I don't think we've had this yet, and the author, who acknowledged her admiration of Austen, (C) Bronte, Heyer, and Sayers in this book would fit right in on the thread.

The big groundcar jerked to a stop centimeters from the vehicle ahead of it, and Armsman Pym, driving, swore under his breath.

When I reached ‘C’ Company lines, which were at the top of the hill, I paused and looked back at the camp, just coming into full view below me through the grey mist of early morning. We were leaving that day. When we marched in, three months before, the place was under snow; now the first leaves of spring were unfolding. I had reflected then that, whatever scenes of desolation lay ahead of us, I never feared one more brutal than this, and I reflected now that it had no single happy memory for me.

Quartet?

Brideshead Revisited. I was just looking at this a few days ago when thinking about this thread.

@FruAashild yes! Well spotted.

Or tetralogy, I think

"The first thing I noticed was the clarity of the air, and then the sharp green colour of the land. There was no softness anywhere. The distant hills did not blend into the sky but stood out like rocks, so close that I could almost touch them, their proximity giving me that shock of surprise and wonder which a child feels looking for the first time through a telescope. Nearer to me, too, each object had the same hard quality, the very grass turning to single blades, springing from a younger, harsher soil than the soil I knew."

Legends and Lattes ;)

I googled this and discovered there's a whole genre subset called cosy fantasy. I must give it a go.

Swallows and Amazons