One Perfect Sentence – September 2024

[AgentPete]

This contest closes at midnight on the last day of September and the winner will be the author of the entry who has aggregated the most votes.

Here’s the writing prompt…

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So here's the writing prompt for the very first One Perfect Sentence writing contest, September 2024.

I’m looking for the first sentence (it can be as long or as short as you want, it doesn't matter) for a book in the Romance genre. Or any of the many many sub-genres within it. I want a first sentence that's going to stop the reader and make them go… “this looks good!”

Why am I setting this? Because it's such a big genre and so much of it is trope-laden. And frankly not very creative.

So your first sentence has to absolutely stop me in my tracks… and make me go...

“I've got to read this!”

Over to you!

 

[Hannah Faoileán]

I slid down the wall with his letter in my hand and his words: "I know."

 

[Ed Simnett]

In my last life he'd ordered my murder, why did I find him so damned attractive?

 

[RK Wallis]

There were rose petals under my fingernails.

 

[Claire G]

He was a brute, the conqueror of her father's Kingdom, and he'd given her an ultimatum: marry him...or watch her father die.

 

[Sedayne]

He’s the only man I’ll ever love, but I think I just met the girl of my dreams.

 

[RK Wallis]

The killer inside wanted to carve her into pieces for ignoring me, but she made my heart sing like never before.

 

[Sedayne]

The sigh that issued from her lips signalled disappointment as the batteries dwindled.

 

[E G Logan]

How quickly can a girl go from wanting to smack someone's beautiful supercilious face to wanting – nay, needing – to rip off his elegantly well-filled breeches?

 

[Rachael Burnett]

That which we call a heart, by any other name would taste as sweet.

 

[Hannah Faoileán]

Of all the people Sheena could have fallen in love with, why the hell did her heart choose a werewolf!

 

[Barbara]

I hate you.

 

[LJ Beck]

It was midnight on New Year’s Eve in Quttinirpaaq National Park, an ocean of stars overhead, my bits freezing off, as alone as I’d ever been, so I took the opportunity to scream at the gods, “Love is such a crock of shit!”

 

[Jonny]

I'd often been told one day it would happen, and yet when it actually did, I was completely unprepared for my life being turned upside down.

 

[Barbara]

Man seeks woman who loves washing up.

 

[CarolMS]

Choosing the wrong love song can be awkward, but singing it to the wrong person can be deadly.

P.S. This is a fun challenge, @AgentPete !

 

[CarolMS]

She saw him watching her, standing in front of the airport bar with a look on his face that told her exactly what was on his mind.

 

[CarolMS]

Krista Hiatt was twenty-two, ripened and sweet with readiness in some ways but in other ways feeling as unborn as a cocooned caterpillar.

 

[CarolMS]

She had an hour to kill before her flight, barely enough time to seduce a dumb-ass victim and get the job done.

(Not exactly my kind of story, but the line that popped up in my mind was too much fun to ignore.)

 

[Bloo]

They were still pulling bones from the ground when the boss arrived.

 

[Barbara]

Man seeks woman who loves washing up.

First line of the sequel:

Woman seeks man with a death wish.

 

[Sedayne]

It was more of an instant obsession than love at first sight, but from the moment he laid his hands on her, he knew she was the only guitar he ever wanted to play.

 

[mickleinapickle]

He'd not ventured into the emerging world of inter-species dating, but the statuesque emu lady was hard to ignore.

 

[E G Logan]

As he smiled at me, now I could see that lanky young man with the untidy long hair, staring out from the cliffs of Ardmor towards Bruan, the photograph from the book jacket of Sunset Over Skarastray.

 

[E G Logan]

"Darling" he said, taking my hand off the door handle and covering it with his, "we keep the stairs to the attics locked, because they are unsafe."

 

[Vagabond Heart]

Pete was a man of limited premonition, or he'd have known the day he unearthed the vast pot of kimchi that it would inevitably lead to a bath full of electric eels and a sad date with destiny.

 

[Claire G]

He'll never know it's about him, she thought, as she typed the final word of her latest romance novel.

 

[Barbara]

It wasn't until she opened the suitcase that she realised ... the "love of her life" would never fit inside.

 

[wrightstuff]

It should not have worked.

 

[E G Logan]

May Kennedy’s beauty was celebrated for miles around, while her lack of fortune was lamented –until she caught the eye of the Laird of Lendalfoot, and what he wanted, he took...

BTW, true story