This month, we’ve got death, the soul, a hot and humid autumn, and more. To submit a first line, email booklifeeditor@booklife.com.

Five Hundred Moons

Buzz Anderson

“The gray-haired chief of the powerful Quiroste tribe cups his hands in the running stream below the falls and brings water to his lips.”


The Girl on the Carpathia

Eileen Enwright Hodgetts

“Kate Royston stood by the rail and felt the wind tugging her hair free of its heavy dark braids.”


Harvest Moon

Jenny Knipfer

“My mother always said that one day I’d get ripped open by my stubbornness, and she was right.”


How to Be Dead: A Love Story

Laurel Schmidt

“It was her idea to die with ‘Fuck!’ on her lips.”


Lying and Making a Living

William Dunlap

“She was tall and erect, regal and composed, and had built a fortress of virtue and serenity around herself.”


Maud’s Circus

Michelle Rene

“Maud retrieved the small, worn bible from the shelf in the pew in front of her.”


A Necessary Explosion: Collected Poems

Dan Burns

“A mask of porcelain,/ tinted by a sun/ south of the border,/ near flawless.”


Revolution (The Sol Saga Book 1)

James Fox

“More than anything else, Brigadier General Keith Brennan of the Protectorate Forces hated his dress-whites.”


A Slow Parade in Penderyn (The Dryad’s Crown Book 1)

David Hopkins

“During the cruel season when the War of the Hounds claimed lives across the northeast and Bren’s Army had yet to turn the war to their favor, deep within the Hazeleaf Forest, a mother woke up in the middle night.”


Soulwork: Connecting with the Universe and Your Spiritual Path to Find Your True Purpose in Life

Elizabeth Radcliffe

“The Soul both does and does not want to do its Soulwork.”


Where the Dead Go

Rasa Samimi

“Adam came to a furore of undulating mountainous seas.”


The Wicked & the Dead

Melissa Marr

“Autumn in the South was still both humid and hot.”


A Wish Too Dark and Kind

M.L. Blackbird

“The young sister ran through the silent city while the prophet waited for her to arrive.”