Hooked on the First Page
Discover captivating books with unforgettable first pages! Explore our curated list of 'Hooked on the First Page' reads that grab you instantly and keep you turning pages.
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The Traveler
by John Twelve Hawks
Their lives shaped by their father's role as a Traveler, an elite prophet able to attain pure enlightenment, Gabriel and Michael Corrigan become a target of the Tabulas, a ruthless cadre seeking world domination.
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Night Witch
by Jack Priest
Alone in bed Carolina plays with her locket, a gift from her dad. She doesnt know he stole it from an evil woman in Trinidad. She hears a noise outside her window, looks up and sees red eyes staring in at her.Something horrible is outside.The Night Witch is a soucouyant, Southern Caribbean cousin to the vampire and werewolf. She is a never aging shape shifter born of a mixture of Voodoo and European folklore. She lives forever because she wears a locket that contains a magic potion.Her locket has been stolen and she wants it back.
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Joplin's Ghost
by Tananarive Due
From the award-winning writer of The Good House, The Living Blood, and more, Joplin's Ghost is a chilling tale of a star-in-the-making whose life goes haywire as she is haunted by the ghost of a long-dead music legend. When Phoenix Smalls was ten, she nearly died at her parents' jazz club when she was crushed by a turn-of-the-century piano. Now twenty-four, Phoenix is launching a career as an R & B singer. She's living the life young artists envy and seems destined for fame and fortune. But a chance visit to a historical site in St. Louis ignites a series of bizarre, erotic encounters with a spirit who may be the King of Ragtime, Scott Joplin. The music of Scott Joplin is strange enough to the ears of the hip-hop generation, but the idea that these antique sounds are being channeled by the protegee of rap superstar G-Ronn is nothing short of ludicrous. With growing violence in G-Ronn's inner circle and a ghost bent on living forever through her, Phoenix's life suddenly hangs in the balance," writes Tananarive Due. Can the power of her own inner song and the love of a music writer who believes in her give Phoenix the strength to fight to live out her own future? Or will she be trapped forever in Scott Joplin's doomed, tragic past?
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Tyrannosaur Canyon
by Douglas Preston
A moon rock missing for thirty years... Five buckets of blood-soaked sand found in a New Mexico canyon... A scientist with ambition enough to kill... A monk who will redeem the world... A dark agency with a deadly mission... The greatest scientific discovery of all time... What fire bolt from the galactic dark shattered the Earth eons ago, and now hides in that remote cleft in the southwest U.S. known as . . . Tyrannosaur Canyon? The stunning new masterwork from the acclaimed best-selling author, recently hailed by Publishers Weekly as "better than Crichton."
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ID: 0451216776
(Type: books)
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Map of Bones
by James Rollins
The bestselling master of astonishing adventure James Rollins delivers his most relentlessly exciting page-turner to date—a gripping and explosive novel of an ancient conspiracy to create a terrifying new world order out of the ashes of modern civilization. The crime is inhumanly cruel with horrific consequences both unthinkable and inevitable. During a service at a cathedral in Cologne, Germany, a band of armed intruders dressed in monks' robes unleash a nightmare of blood and terror, ruthlessly gunning down worshippers and clergy alike. The killers haven't come for the church's gold and valuable artwork, but for a priceless treasure secreted within: the preserved bones of the Three Magi who once came to pay homage to a newborn savior. As they flee the carnage they have wrought, they carry a prize that could reshape the world. The Vatican is in turmoil, and Lieutenant Rachel Verona of Rome's carabinieri is assigned to lead the investigation. But no ordinary police organization alone can deal with the bizarre theft and massacre, and SIGMA Force—an elite covert arm of the U.S. Defense Department—is called in under the command of Grayson Pierce. New to SIGMA, Pierce assembles a crack team of scientific and Special Forces operatives to unravel the mystery of the stolen bones, and together they set out on a twisting trail through a labyrinth of clues and dark revelations that carry them to the sites of the Seven Wonders of the World—and to the doorstep of the mystical and terrifying Dragon Court. An ancient, secret fraternity of alchemists and assassins, the master-adepts of the Dragon Court have plans for the sacred remains that will alter the future of humankind in devastating ways that only the maddest of zealots could desire—and they will let nothing and no one stand in their way. Suddenly Pierce, Verona, and the SIGMA team are the hunted as well as the hunters, forced to use every skill they possess to survive as they follow the bones to the ultimate confrontation between darkness and light—in a lost place of history where science and religion will unite to unleash a horror not seen since the beginning of time. A masterful novel that combines the exhilarating mysticism of The Da Vinci Code with the pulse-pounding action of a Tom Clancy thriller, James Rollins's Map of Bones is destined to be a modern classic that will stand among the very best adventure tales ever written.
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The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova
An "innovative" (The New Yorker) retelling of the story of Dracula. Told with the flourish and poise of a talented storyteller, Kostova turns the age-old tale into a compelling "late night page-turner" (San Francisco Chronicle) When a young woman discovers a cache of ancient letters, she is thrown into the turbulent history of her parents' dark pasts. Uncovering a labyrinthine trail of clues, she begins to reconstruct a staggering history of deceit and violence. Debut novelist Elizabeth Kostova creates an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present, with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful and utterly unforgettable.
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Anansi Boys
by Neil Gaiman
One of fiction's most audaciously original talents, Neil Gaiman now gives us a mythology for a modern age -- complete with dark prophecy, family dysfunction, mystical deceptions, and killer birds. Not to mention a lime. Anansi Boys God is dead. Meet the kids. When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, twenty years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts" his father bestowed -- before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life. Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall, good-looking stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is from day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a little fun ... just like Dear Old Dad. And all of a sudden, life starts getting very interesting for Fat Charlie. Because, you see, Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spider-god. Anansi is the spirit of rebellion, able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. Some said he could cheat even Death himself. Returning to the territory he so brilliantly explored in his masterful New York Times bestseller, American Gods, the incomparable Neil Gaiman offers up a work of dazzling ingenuity, a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth that is at once startling, terrifying, exhilarating, and fiercely funny -- a true wonder of a novel that confirms Stephen King's glowing assessment of the author as "a treasure-house of story, and we are lucky to have him."
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The Ghost Writer
by John Harwood
Plagued with unpleasant memories of his mother's death, shy Gerard Freeman is obsessed with the manuscript of a century-old ghost story written by his great-grandmother and entrusted to his care.
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ID: 0975965395
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Velocity
by Dean Ray Koontz
Bill Wile is an easygoing, hardworking guy who leads a quiet, ordinary life. But that is about to change.
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Gil's All Fright Diner
by A. Lee Martinez
Earl and Duke help Loretta with her on-going zombie problem.
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Forever Odd
by Dean Ray Koontz
In the unique world of Pico, Odd--an unforgettable hero who lives between the living and the dead--takes a stand against evil in a battle where there are no innocent bystanders. 600,000 first printing.
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ID: 0373802277
(Type: books)
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Dean Koontz's Frankenstein
by Dean Ray Koontz
A killer stalks the streets, he is a homicidal maniac, a freak of a mysterious origin, a tattooed man.
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Dean Koontz's Frankenstein
by Dean Ray Koontz
When Victor's latest creations, an army of engineered killers set loose in modern-day New Orleans, begin to exceed his expectations and exhibit logistical and analytical skills, he plans to eliminate the entire race, a plan that backfires into humankind's ultimate nightmare. Original.
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Dead in the West
by Joe R. Lansdale
Dead in the West is the story of Mud Creek, Texas, a town overshadowed by a terrible evil. An Indian medicine man, unjustly lynched by the people of Mud Creek, has put a curse on the town. As the sun sets, he will have his revenge. For when darkness falls, the dead will walk in Mud Creek and they will be hungry for human flesh. The only one that can save the town is Reverend Jebediah Mercer, a gun toting preacher man who came to Mud Creek to escape his past. He has lost his faith in the Lord and his only solace is the whisky bottle. Will he renew his faith in himself and God to defeat this evil or will the town be destroyed? Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
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The Forbidden
by L. A. Banks
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned in this exciting fifth book of the Vampire Huntress series by the bestselling author of "The Damned." Original.
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ID: 0345470443
(Type: books)
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Nocturnes
by John Connolly
Featuring a Charlie Parker novella, this is a haunting collection of short fiction by the "New York Times" bestselling author of "Bad Men."