First Lines Friday...

Before Kenya was Kenya, when it was millions of years old and yet still somehow new, the name belonged only to our most magnificent mountain. You could see it from our farm in Njoro, in the British East African Protectorate - hard edged at the far end of a stretching golden plain, its crown glazed with ice that never completely melted. Behind us, the Mau Forest was blue with strings of mist. Before us, the Rongai Valley sloped down and away, bordered on one side by the strange, high Menengai Crater, which the natives called the Mountain of God, and on the other by the distant Aberdare Range, rounded blue-grey hills that went smoky and purple at dusk before dissolving into the night sky.
                     …. Circling the Sun by Paula McLain


I absolutely LOVED this book! And it was her lush writing that really did it for me. This opening from the first chapter is just a sampling of what's in store for you if you decide to read Circling the Sun. What do you think? Do these first lines hook you? Yes or No?