13 First Paragraphs

Okay, so I stole this idea straight from Bethanne. Thanks Betty. Here are the first paragraphs to thirteen of my own novels. Hope you enjoy them.

1. Awaken the Devil

Thirteen years ago---In the almost blanket-thick darkness of the room it was possible for Chandler Bentley to see very little. A thin spray of moonlight from a break in his curtains offered him a limited view of his bedroom. He could barely see the Queen Anne chair next to the bed and the Persian rug on the floor. He could make out just a hint of the head board. Finely carved mahogany, it had once belonged to his great-grandfather. Generations of Bentley’s had been born in its shadow.

2. Digging Up Bones

I know something about love. And murder. I really suck at figuring either one of them out. Matters of the heart are just not my forte and matters of murder follow close behind. The day that I decided to move to Birdwell, Texas population 562 was the same day that I began to suspect that my fourth, and believe me final, engagement might not work out after all.

3. Cat-and-Mouse

The only thing worse than being outright tortured is going to a class reunion. Go ahead. Try and tell me it isn’t true. It had been ten years since I had graduated from West Collingwood High School in West Collingwood, Nevada. You know, that little town where you stop for gas on your way into Vegas?

4. Dirty Little Secrets

It wasn’t just because she was surrounded by the sticky sweet haze of adolescent hormones that Julia Duffy couldn’t think about anything but sex. It didn’t help, of course, that all she overheard all day long was teenaged accounts of romping vehicular sexcapades while she was getting nothing of the kind. The real problem was that she was getting nothing of the kind. It was a sad day in the world of high school when the students were actually getting more coitus than the teachers. It was even implied that the characters in the plays that she taught, all of whom seemed to fluctuate between insanity and saccharine sweetness, were getting more than she was.

5. Hush Little Baby

Fear rose, like some kind of untamed animal, and attacked Amity Douglas just when she needed her wits about her the most. She was immobilized for a moment, stuck on the cracked sidewalk between a squat soda fountain style building that housed a doctor’s office and the tall brownstone that had been her destination before weakness had stopped her. The humidity was painfully thick and she was sweating under her linen shift.

6. Jordan and Bell (Obviously a working title, lol)
Grace Jordan stared in horror at the phone that she’d just returned to its cradle. She backed away with her hand pressed to her mouth as though the innocent piece of plastic would leap from the table and attack her.


7. Leslie (Same deal)
It was so hot in Manhattan that some environmental pundits had taken to saying that the city was burning, that the price of modern life was this uncustomary heat. All over town air conditioners cranked. People were taking more taxies and doing less walking. Windows got left open by those who would have otherwise been more careful. Bodies, slick with sweat, were sleeping fitfully when underneath them, fire truly raged.

8. Ivy (I'm not good at writing titles. I always wait until the end.)
He was getting tired of waiting. He had waited so long that the itch was coming back. He would have to move soon. But he didn’t want to be clumsy or impulsive. It was imperative that he pick the right girl. The right girl was so important when it came to the slaughter. He had not been careful before and had felt dirty and bitter afterwards. He hated to feel that way. He hated to waste his power on someone who didn’t deserve it and then he would have to wait again until the itch came back. It always made him angry and restless. That’s what had happened last time. He had picked the wrong girl. She was not at all what he’d thought she was but by the time he’d discovered it had already been too late.

9. Conner (I'm just going to quit explaining)
There was not, and never had been, a significant amount of crime in Harrison, Texas. Sheriff Clint Conner and his three deputies had plenty of practice when it came to the everyday stuff. They had seen petty vandalism and minor thievery from the local boys when no one had enough money on a Saturday night to get to Amarillo and back. Then there were the drunken brawls, the God-given right of every small town Texan. There had even been murders before. Enraged wives with shot guns and ignorant, angry husbands with unforgiving fists. But there had never been this.

10. Dead Man Talking

“How can you girls wear such tight pants? Just looking at you hurts my bits and pieces.”

I looked at myself in the dressing room mirror and didn’t bother to tell Bobby Fischer that these were a size bigger than I usually wore. I was seriously going to have to lay off the Ben and Jerry’s. “You don’t have bits and pieces.” I reminded. “Besides, I don’t take fashion advice from the dead. They have notoriously bad taste.”

11. Grange
Will Forester had been delivering for American Parcel Service in rural Oklahoma for about two years. He’d gotten lost plenty of times. More times than he cared to admit, having once prided himself on his higher than average sense of direction. But he always found his way somehow and none of the guys from the home office were ever the wiser. It was a matter of pride to have never gotten lost.


12.Noble West
Noble West knew his job. He didn’t like it, but he knew it. He was the one who kept General Maglin in the know. He was the one who told Maglin that Peltuchi had killed a man and that Adams was wanted by the mob. He was the one who held from Cole the secret of his past. He was the man who laid down his head at night and replayed memories of Cole’s life before. He was the one who knew the deepest secrets of every man in Project Reuse, or Project Belleview as they liked to call it.

13. Someone to Watch Over Me

“Hello, this is Kit Douglas. I’m away from my desk right now but if you’ll leave your name and number I would be happy to help you.”

For a moment Lorianne Haines felt tears of relief sting her eyes that for once in the last two days something was going the way it should. At this moment her vigilant search through every one of the dozens of private investigators in Denver seemed worth every wasted second when time was so very tight. Christopher Douglas’ voice sounded the same as it had when they were teenagers, albeit much deeper; very firm and reassuring. The voice of a man who could talk anyone into calmness or confidence. Just from listening to his message she actually felt like he really wanted to help her. She hoped so because she needed it very badly.