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?

• 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!

The Monterey Dream pulled away from the dock at a slow,
easy pace, drawing gasps of astonished delight from the
tourists crowding her decks.
The crowd was good for a morning whale-watching expedition:
thirty or so on the bottom level, closer to the water,
where they'd be able to look into the churning waves and
imagine they could see jellyfish tangled in the snowy foam.

---

---

---

---

---

---

time for the big reveal!

Seven years ago, the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a “mockumentary” bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy.

Now, a new crew has been assembled. But this time they’re not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life’s work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost.

Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves. But the secrets of the deep come with a price.

I love it when mermaids are not Disney good! I’m kind of excited but scared to read this one because it’s supposed to be super scary. I may have to listen to it but I think I may do this as a buddy read with my mom! How fun would that be? Let’s see if she’s going to beat me in reading it. I’m sure she will this weekend while I’m flying in the plane.