Feathers fell from the sky. Like black snow, they drifted onto an old city called Bath.

The first sentence of a book is a promise.

My watch buzzed and told me I had ten minutes left to live. I turned my wrist to glance at it. Yep. This sucks.

J.M. Friedman. Succubus in Seattle (Kindle Locations 28-29).

It is cold at six-forty in the morning on a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad.

The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace.

The Rue du Coq d'Or, Paris, seven in the morning.