Hello all! It’s time again for a page one critique where we closely review the first page of a published novel and consider the techniques the author used in attempting to hook the reader.
This page one was recommended by a subscriber in our community. Thanks, Pamela! Before I reveal the title/author, please read the first page and consider a few questions:
Do you have a sense of the tone?
Do you appreciate the word choices?
What is the hook for you?
Even if you’re not keen on the subject/genre, that’s okay. Review this page for the craft and technique.
The night has come and she has not heard the knocking, standing at the window looking out into the garden. How the dark gathers without sound the cherry trees. It gathers the last of the leaves and the leaves do not resist the dark but accept the dark in whisper. Tired now, the day almost behind her, all that still has to be done before bed and the children settled in the living room, this feeling of rest for a moment by the glass. Watching the darkening garden and the wish to be at one with the darkness, to step outside and lie down with it, to lie with the fallen leaves and let the night pass over, to wake then with the dawn and rise renewed with the morning come. But the knocking. She hears it pass into thought, the sharp, insistent rapping, each knock so fully possessed so fully of the knocker she begins to frown. Then Bailey too is knocking on the glass door to the kitchen, he calls out to her, Mam, pointing in the hallway without lifting his eyes from the screen Eilish finds her body moving toward the hall with the baby in her arms, she opens the front door and two men are standing before the porch glass almost faceless in the dark. She turns on the porch light and the men are known in an instant from how they are stood, the night-cold air suspiring it seems as she slides open the patio door, the suburban quiet, the rain falling almost unspoken onto St. Laurence Street, upon the black car parked in front of the house.