First Line Friday 56 || Haunted Houses and Apparitions

Posted November 1, 2019 by Sammie in #amreading, chat with me, First Line Friday, Friday 56 / 17 Comments

It’s time to play “guess that book” and also watch our TBRs weep.

“First Line Fridays” is by Hoarding Books and is all about the first line of a current/upcoming read. Friday 56 is a meme hosted by Freda’s Voice, where you turn to page 56 (or 56%) in what you’re reading a find a snippet that jumps out at you.

First Lines



Aubrey Ross had always suspected she might be a little unhinged. Not enough to be locked up in the psychiatric ward, but just enough to understand she was different.


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56% Snippet



“You can’t run away from your problems, Aubrey. Otherwise, you’ll never stop running. You’re looking for answers. You need to find them.”


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Book Reveal



Click To Reveal The Book
Nothing Hidden Ever Stays

A two-hundred-year-old curse. A tangled thread of mental illness. A growing list of Ross family women dying young. The house where it all began, Desolate Ridge, holds all the secrets.

Abandoned at a hospital when she was only three years old, Aubrey Ross grew up as a ward of the state, passed from one foster family to the next. Having endured years of abuse and neglect, she’s become hardened to the world around her.

She’s flirted with depression and anxiety, and she’s haunted by premonitions. When a strange man approaches Aubrey with information about her past, she knows her life is about to change. Inside the envelope is the deed to a house in Ohio—her ancestral home.

When Aubrey arrives in Rossdale, the town named after her family, she immediately experiences situations she cannot explain. She hears voices, sees apparitions, and has vivid visions of tragedies she can scarcely comprehend. Aubrey comes to realize she is reliving events which have happened to those who came before her.

Then she meets Hank Metzger, the town’s sheriff, whose family has an eerie connection to her own. As the secrets of Desolate Ridge are unearthed, Aubrey begins to understand her destiny is tied to Hank’s in a way she cannot escape.



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Reasons to Read



✿ Haunted house. DUH!
✿ … was that haunted house thing not enough? Ugh, FINE.
✿ Super spooky atmosphere.
✿ Unreliable narrator.
✿ Family secrets! The dark kind (which are the best kind).
✿ Mystery and thrills, so the best of both worlds.

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What’s your first line (or a favorite line) from what you’re reading this week?

17 responses to “First Line Friday 56 || Haunted Houses and Apparitions

    • It is … sort of? The writing/setup is kind of … meh. But the atmosphere is nicely dark with lots of spooky things going on, so it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

    • So far, this one has a lovely spooky atmosphere without being all that creepy. I think it’s because it’s written in a way where I don’t really connect with the character, and it feels more like someone’s telling me a story around a campfire rather than me watching something unfold. It doesn’t have that immediacy, so it hasn’t particularly scared me or anything.

    • You are so not alone. I know a lot of people like that (and I’m really picky with horror books for the same reason! Nothing *too* scary for me, either).

  1. Happy Friday!

    Today on my blog I am sharing the first line from The Bright Unknown by Elizabeth Byler Younts. Oh my word is this book amazing!!! Currently, I am reading Once Upon a Christmas: Contemporary Retellings of Timeless Tales. It’s a really fun Christmas collection of novellas. I’ll share a line from that book here.

    “Being escorted out of the firm by building security wasn’t on his to-do list, but he could write it in later … and cross it off.”

    LOL! This book is filled with sweet and sassy stories. I am loving it so far.

    Hope you have a great weekend. Happy reading!

    • Oh my gosh, I love that line! It made me chuckle. I might just have to look that up for my December reads, because that sounds like it’ll be a fun December read!

  2. OK this sounds creepy AF?! This type of creepy is not my jam at all but I’m also really intrigued by that synopsis?! Knowing my chicken ass though I don’t think I’ll be reading this… But I still want to know all about it. Hahaha damnit! The dilemma of a chicken’s life 🙄

    • Well, there’s definitely a really spooky vibe, and I’m loving that. But also, it’s this weird feeling of being written in a way where I don’t *really* connect with any of the characters. It sounds to me sort of like a campfire tale, where someone’s telling you about someone they know. I can’t decide if that difference from the narration is good or bad, but it definitely keeps it from being as scary, at the very least. So … chickens, rejoice! xD

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