First Chapter ~ First Paragraph (November 15)

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.

This week I am featuring The Beautiful Dead by Belinda Bauer, a writer who hasn’t let me down yet, I even coped with her turn to the supernatural in The Shut Eye, something only very talented writers can persuade me to read.

 

Blurb

TV crime reporter Eve Singer’s career is flagging, but that starts to change when she covers a spate of bizarre murders—each one committed in public and advertised like an art exhibition. When the killer contacts Eve about her coverage of his crimes, she is suddenly on the inside of the biggest murder investigation of the decade. But as the killer becomes increasingly obsessed with her, Eve realizes there’s a thin line between inside information and becoming an accomplice to murder—possibly her own.

A seamlessly-plotted thriller that will keep readers breathless until the very end, The Beautiful Dead cements Belinda Bauer’s reputation as a master of heart-stopping suspense. NetGalley

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First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Intro

PART ONE

1 December

Layla Martin’s shoes were killing her.
She had bought them on Thursday even though they rubbed her little toes.
A hundred and thirty pounds. A third of her weekly wage. She’d worn them on Thursday night and again on Friday night while making cheese on toast for tea. And then she had won them to work on Saturday even though she knew she’d be the only person on the eighth floor – quite possibly in the whole building. She’d wanted to break them in for Monday, when she was planning to walk past the glass-walled office of the new accountants manager at least twenty times, because he had a sports car and a great bum and the ridiculously high heels made her calves look fabulous.
But now it was those very same heels that she was running in. Running for her life, she had to assume.

I know I cheated a little to take this into the second paragraph, but what an opening! I think I’m going to enjoy this one, very much.

So… would you keep reading? Please leave your thoughts in the comments box below.