First Lines Friday – 18th June 2021

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? If you want to make your own post, just follow the rules below:

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!

These are the first lines from the prologue of a book I am currently reading. It’s decidedly spooky!

Trapped inside his own mind, the man clung to his despair, the last surviving fragment of his identity.
Years had passed since his incarceration in this gray, shapeless place. Long enough for the man to forget his name, his former existence, everything that had once made him who he was. The body that had once belonged to him had grown old and feeble, locked away from the outside world. His consciousness was hidden as if behind a bank of storm clouds through which glimpses filtered like sparse sunlight, splintered images and memories that tormented him without offering closure. Within those clouds, something vast moved, a presence that had fastened upon him, burrowed inside him, fed on his thoughts and desires, eating away all sense of himself.

And the book is…

Always Beside You by Damir Salkovic

Help her open the door. It wants to come through…

First, the dream. Now this message from the mouth of a stranger. It was too much of a coincidence for Nate Carver, and has him dropping everything to help a woman he hasn’t even thought about in eight years, not since the overdose that almost took Cathy Deveraux’s life.

The prison escape of Thomas Elbert stirs up memories for Detective Alec Palmer, and the man’s death raises questions. Why would a catatonic convicted killer suddenly wake up and escape, only to commit suicide days later? Or was it murder? And what connection did he have to Nate Carver, a man on the run with a daughter he never knew he had?

All roads lead to Boston, where, in their search for answers, they will be drawn into the dark world of the occult and mysticism. Of parallel worlds and alternate realities. Of doors that open onto other times and other worlds. Of dreams that won’t be denied.

By the time they realize they are merely pawns in a much bigger game, a game where the fate of the world is at stake, will it be too late?

Buy here:
US: www.amazon.com/Always-Beside-You-Damir-Salkovic-ebook/dp/B08WC56H4C/

UK: www.amazon.co.uk/Always-Beside-You-Damir-Salkovic-ebook/dp/B08WC56H4C/

Add to goodreads:

www.goodreads.com/book/show/57293889-always-beside-you

Damir is an aficionado of horror and the weird living in Arlington, VA. He enjoys reading, traveling, and low-budget horror movies. He earns his living as an auditor, a profession that supplies nightmare material for his stories and plenty of writing time in the form of long-haul flights and interminable layovers.

Visit Damir’s blog here: http://darkerrealities.wordpress.com/

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