First Chapter ~ First Paragraph (November 10)

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

My opening this week comes from The Secret by the Lake by Louise Douglas

Blurb

A FAMILY TRAGEDY
Amy’s always felt like something’s been missing in her life. When a tragedy forces the family she works for as a nanny to retreat to a small lakeside cottage, she realises she cannot leave them now.
A SISTER’S SECRET
But Amy finds something unsettling about the cottage by the lake. This is where the children’s mother spent her childhood – and the place where her sister disappeared mysteriously at just seventeen.
A WEB OF LIES
Soon Amy becomes tangled in the missing sister’s story as dark truths begin rising to the surface. But can Amy unlock the secrets of the past before they repeat themselves? NetGalley

~ ~ ~

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Intro

PROLOGUE
Blackwater
July 1931

It was a beautiful thing, a slender chain with a heart-shaped pendant a ruby surrounded by tiny diamonds set ina gold clasp in the shape of two hands, joined together.
‘It’s more than a hundred years old,’ madam had explained some weeks earlier,’ and very precious. It’s been in my family for generations.’ Madam’s jewellery, normally kept locked in the safe, had been laid out on a velvet cloth spread over the table in dining room, along with her silver candlesticks, her Victorian tea-set and various other items of high value. They were making an inventory ‘for insurance purposes’, she had said, although that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was because she wanted to remind her husband which side his bread was buttered.

CHAPTER ONE

Thirty Years Later
April 1961, Deusables, France

It had been a glorious spring, warm enough to swim in April and the day’s damp towels were pegged on the line stretched across the lawn behind the lovely old French farmhouse, the place where I’d spent my last ten summers with the Laurent family.

Please note that these excerpts are taken from a proof copy

Do you want to know more?

If you have an opening to share, please leave your link in the comments box below