Talk About A Hook...

I was at Wal-Mart today and in the treating myself mood. Give me a break, I'm menstrual, and I wanted a new pair of pajamas.

So, as I can rarely resist I took a swing through the book aisle, and they'd got a new shipment in. Perusing the covers for one that looked like a book I'd read (step 1 in the Farmgirl Buys A Book Guide to Literary Addiction) my eye caught on one that isn't really my usual style, a street scene with a dark motif.

The title was The Man with the Golden Torc, by Simon R. Green. I was just barely intrigued enough to pick it up and read the back.

The back copy was iffy.

They say, in writing, you have to have a kick ass first page. When submitting to agents, or publishing houses, you have to capture their attention in a few pages, or they'll just toss off a form rejection and call it a day. Every writing guide I've ever seen (that I was sure wasn't a joke) has instructed me to make my first page pop.

Simon R. Green has mastered this concept. I flipped the book open to take a peek at the writing to see if I wanted to give it a chance, and with just a skim down the first page of the first chapter, I knew I had to own this book.

On the first page an unnamed political figure ("Lets call him Mr. President, and no, not the one you're thinking of,") has contracted a supernatural venereal disease during a goodwill tour of Thailand, subsequently becoming pregnant with "something the very opposite of a love child."

If this is the first page, I can't wait to see the rest of the book.

On a related note, I now feel like my first page is a flop...

I'm off, to start reading the book. And yes, Farmmom, Farmdad, you can have it when I'm done with it...