#OpeningSentence

I stood in the door and looked down.

— Machine by Elizabeth Bear (duplicate)

The first time I realize my sister wants to leave, we are in the White World.

— Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta

Bianca walks toward me, under too much sky.

— The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

Today is the Ritual of Purity.

— The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

Once they made sacrifices here, to appease the Eight.

— The Raven Scholar by  (The Eternal Path Trilogy, #1.0)

Staybehind’s body was moving before he woke up, driven by fear and algorithms.

— Automatic Noodle

A Merchant travelling into a foreign Country, fell extreamly in Love with a young Lady; but being a stranger in that Nation, and beneath her, both in Birth and Wealth, he could have but little hopes of obtaining his desire; however his Love growing more and more vehement upon him, even to the slighting of all difficulties, he resolved at last to Steal her away; which he had the better opportunity to do, because her Father's house was not far from the Sea, and she often using to gather shells upon the shore accompanied not with above two to three of her servants it encouraged him the more to execute his design.

— The description of a new world, called the blazing world and other writings by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle

Agatha Panza von Sparkles settled into Needle’s pilot seat for the very first time.

— Sunward by William Alexander

I’m not eligible for parole for six months.

— Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto

Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches.

— The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Yekini had one dream, and the ark was always in it.

— Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

Tiliard, known as the Deathbed of Tulips, straddles the river gorge like a half-submerged stump.

— The Works of Vermin

The wind bit, the sun hid, and on the first day of class, when she ought to have been lecturing undergraduates about the dangers of using the Cartesian severance spell to revise without pee breaks, Alice Law set out to rescue her advisor’s soul from the Eight Courts of Hell.

— Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

A girl and a god, alone in communion.

— Library of Broken Worlds

The young woman, at times described as a wash of colors seeking rest, at times a stone soul, at times a witch, reached into a pocket of timespace, pulled her small journal from its air, and wrote while curtains of raindrops cooled the open space under her family’s covered patio.

— Amnandi Sails (The Khumalo Trilogy, #2.0)