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I want to see the paragraphs/short passages that you use as a hook. Maybe it's the opening of your book. Maybe it's just a great cliff hanger at the end of a chapter. Either way, I want to read it!

I'll go first. This is from the preface to my book:

Maybe I should’ve gained some comfort from the fact that I was loved. When you’re in love, you’re supposed to hold hands and face death with serene acceptance. We could share a dramatic kiss as we died in the tradition of star-crossed lovers everywhere.

“F*** that sh*t,” I said as my chainsaw sputtered to life and began to roar. “Let's slice off some heads.”

Warning: unedited, first draft, grammar issues etc etc lol

I write erotic romance so although this passage is not TOO bad, I'm still going to put it in spoiler tags since I really don't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

(view spoiler)[He let out a low chuckle. A second later Jourdan felt him kiss the back of her neck, before saying, in that husky voice that drove her insane, “Morning, baby.”.
Well, that send a whole new stream of wetness down her thighs, didn’t it? Lord, the man sounded good in the morning.
She loved it when he called her “baby”.
Jourdan cleared her throat. “Good morning.”
He kissed her shoulder then, bit into it softly. “I’m hungry.”
As he slid a finger inside of her, Jourdan realized that she was too. Starving, really. (hide spoiler)]

This is a great thread!!!!!

C.L. wrote: "I want to see the paragraphs/short passages that you use as a hook. Maybe it's the opening of your book. Maybe it's just a great cliff hanger at the end of a chapter. Either way, I want to read it!..."
Hahah this is my kind of hook. XD I'm not even into zombie stuff but this sounds like something I'll try.

Not sure if it's classed as a hook. Warning for language.

A faint growl rolled through the walls of the corridor making both men jump. Wren backed away a foot more while Span redoubled his efforts at the panel.
“Oh fuck what have you done?” Wren yelled.
“What?” Span asked just as he heard the whoosh of the other doors in the corridor opening. The growling got a whole lot louder.
“Shit get it shut”
“I’m trying” Beads of perspiration were running into Span’s eyes as he tried and failed to get to grips with the burnt out door system.
The thing at the other end of the corridor started to stir for the second time. Wren tried to manually move the door, but as he already knew, it wasn’t going anywhere. Leaving his brother grappling with the controls he ran to another box and entered a code and sounded the lab evacuation alarm.

Great thread! Here's a passage from my book that pretty much sums it all up:

"It wasn't really a long-term relationship, and I know I wasn't an easy person to be around."

"You talk openly," I remarked. "And you listen well. I would have thought that makes you an easy person to be around. At least that's how I feel."

"You're an easy person to talk to, that's all. I don't tell my life story to every person I kidnap."

What??? Kidnap!!! Wasn't expecting that.

I think this was a great idea, who ever thought of it!!!

The kidnap bit got me too. That was good.

I love this thread so I'm going to throw a little contemporary romance your way. Carole, no spoilers please. ;) She already knows what happens as she read it back in 2015.

Sally struggled to open her heavy eyelids. Her body was heavy too; she couldn't even scratch her itchy nose. Why can't I open my eyes?

She heard distant voices above her. She strained to hear what they were saying.

"She lost a lot of blood."

"But she's going to be okay, right doc?"

"The wound wasn't as deep as I thought. She has ten stitches in her hand."

"Thank God."

She couldn't discern the voices but she assumed they were Trevor and Doc Carver. Someone kissed her forehead.

"I'm here, baby. I know you can hear me."

A warm glow spread throughout Sally's body. Trevor.

"I can tell you, I'm worried about the hypothermia more than the hand injury." Doc's voice wavered.

Sally heard footsteps then a gasp.

"I got here as quick as I could." A baritone voice sounded familiar to Sally but she couldn't remember who it belonged to.

"Jack," replied Doc.

Sally's stomach flipped as someone held her hand. What was Jack doing here? Sally strained to hear sounds, anything to give her a clue as to what was going on. Faintly, she heard beeps and whooshes.

"Sally," Jack's voice choked up. "Oh God..."

I need to wake up.

"Jack, let's talk outside." Doc's voice again.

"How could you let this happen?" Jack accused. "You were on the farm with her, or so Marcus tells me."

"Jack, it's no one's fault. Sally made a mistake by putting her fingers into the snow blower trying to get out some wedged-in ice."

Sally focused on opening her eyes. I've got to get them to stop blaming themselves. C'mon body, work!

"She did what?!" Someone let go of Sally's hand.

Sally's eyes fluttered open. White ceiling. Machines beeping around her. I'm in a hospital. She sighed.

Lana sat in the truck and watched the Tesla speed away. He was driving way too fast for someone she was supposed to be following. She started the truck, pulled onto the roadway and hit the gas. He was running! She should’ve known better and called the police—it served her right. It didn’t take a genius to see that she reacted to him like a grade school crush and when he caught on, he played her like a fiddle. Lana slammed her hands down on the steering wheel as she accelerated towards the car from hell. As hard as she pressed the pedal, the aging Ford couldn’t catch up to the Tesla. As her truck went up a steep hill in the road and came back down, the Tesla was nowhere in sight.
“Damn it!” she yelled, and took her foot off the gas, letting the vehicle slow down to speeds it was more accustomed.
She glanced down at the business card in the middle console and rolled her eyes. Kayden Capshaw had probably spent his entire life getting out of things like this because of his looks and she was just his newest victim. Taking another deep breath, the cherry scented car freshener slammed into her nostrils and made her feel nauseous. She grabbed it off the rearview mirror, rolled the window down and threw it out.

Read most of them, hahah

Melissa wrote: "C.L. wrote: "I want to see the paragraphs/short passages that you use as a hook. Maybe it's the opening of your book. Maybe it's just a great cliff hanger at the end of a chapter. Either way, I wan..."

It was a great read.

I'm enjoying these, guys, keep 'em coming!

@Melissa - I'm phobic of dead bodies myself. Definitely don't have to be into zombies to enjoy the book, althought there is some gore, because... well... zombies. But one of them is very sweet and romantic.

I have a huge cliffhanger at the end of book 2 in my Shiva XIV series (Veil of Truth) but I can't show that here because it's too much of a spoiler... and it probably wouldn't even make sense to you guys. lol So... instead, I'll post this hook-like part from Chapter 3, also from book 2:

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen – almost too beautiful, like a deity from Deiusian legend. With his eyes barely willing to open, he saw her hovering over him with a sweet smile upon her soft, rosy lips. She had the most striking eyes of sparkling violet and was looking at him with a gentle, loving expression.

As he struggled to open his eyes, he was astonished to see her lavender and silver-highlighted hair cascading down her shoulders like delicately spun strands of silk. Even her skin looked as smooth as white velvet. She seemed from the heavens above, and it was now obvious to Ayn; he was dead.

Great cliffhanger!

The After House

Glass rolled on the uneven floorboards, startling Remy from her revelry. She sat up straight, her heart beating wildly in her chest as her nervous eyes scanned the darkened room. Reaching down, she righted the bottle. Her eyes searched the chamber, her fingers shaking with the uneasy feeling she was being watched. She looked at the twisting patterns on the wall, the play of light from the moon streaming in. There was no one there. No one at all. She must have tipped it.

She shivered uncontrollably, goose bumps spreading across her chest. Wrapping the blanket over her shoulders, she raced up the rickety stairs, darting into her bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her.

“How does it look?” the captain called out to Mongo, who was peering through his telescope.

“I think we have some rough seas ahead, Captain. I see some dark clouds, and the wind is whipping up something fierce.”

Being a Captain is Hard Work

Tortured Souls: The House on Wellfleet Bluffs

The single incandescent light bulb overhead started to swing slowly, casting eerie shadows across the room. Dust motes stirred up by an unknown disturbance caught the light, twinkling faintly as they floated around the room. A breath, no it couldn’t have been... his conscience told him. It must have been a breeze that tickled the back of his neck. It startled him, making him check for a source for the draft.

Finding no reason, he played it off like it never happened. In the far corner, he heard a low rumble, followed by something moving around. Startled, Jason turned and looked around the room absently. Must be mice, he thought to himself. His eyes were drawn again to the boxes on the upper shelves. A few were labeled, but he couldn’t make out the words. He wiped the dust from the largest of them. ‘Historical Records’ it read. Curiously, he pulled the box from the top of the rickety shelf, half expecting it to topple over. He blew off a layer of dust, silently cursing when he was caught in the violent wave of sneezing. He turned away from the dust cloud quickly, wiping his face on his sleeve as he perched the box precariously on his hip. He decided to carry the box upstairs where he could inspect it more clearly. He snapped off the light, carefully ascended the steps, and closed the door behind him, oblivious to the ominous form that was taking shape below.

It's not much but I just wrote an alternative blurb for promotional purposes for my upcoming book The Macabre Masterpiece: Repressed Carnage

You thought the Macabre Masterpiece was done telling it’s story and scaring the wits out of people? Well you thought wrong. The Macabre Masterpiece is back with new tales to tell. Ones that are not only more shocking and grotesque but downright morbid and sinister. They test the fiber of one’s being and whether or not they have the will to keep reading. The poems within are downright horrific and expand the mind to what scare’s it the most. Repressed Carnage is here and when it comes to the threshold of horror..anything goes.

I have a novelette that is in its editing stage here:
https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
If anyone is interested in reading the rest of this Kafkaesque raccoon story.

"Don’t!” the boy warned, but it was too late.
The spitting and thrashing creature had broken skin. Up to that day, he hadn’t seen anything act in such a way. It burned a hole in his memories, a broken record playing his sisters unbearable wails in the background. He grabbed her by the unscathed arm and dragged her as fast as her nubby little legs could stumble. Trees flew past them like they were heading in the opposite direction. He wished they could all line up and form a wall around the rabid animal behind them.
It wasn’t too far to their house. However, no one was home yet. Mama had gone to get groceries and Papa was at work for another hour. The kids knew this would be their only time to adventure. Had they ever been read Red Riding Hood, they might’ve thought twice.
When they got back, the boy climbed on top of the counter and pulled out the first aid kit. He had seen his mother wrap their fathers wounds after a bar fight had gotten out of hand as well as when the boy had fallen off his bike. His sisters injury was a bit different though. Once he tried to apply the bandages, she started drooling.
At first, he thought maybe she was having an allergic reaction. She had had one before in a restaurant and had to be taken to the hospital. He realized how wrong he was when she fell over, her body twisting every which way, bandages rolling around her body. He stood immobilized and stared as the shock set in.
Eventually, his sister ceased her involuntary dance and he placed her head on his lap. He called her name but nothing came of it. So, he sat there confused with his sisters jello-like yet statuesque body on him, her drool leaking through his shorts. That was how his mother found them.

...
"The crunching glass under my steps didn’t even move her. I knelt down with a tissue and bandage that I found in the medicine cabinet and dabbed the blood from her temple, expecting her to push me away. It was a small gash, not deep enough for stitches.
“No shame if you cried,” I said.
Seized by harbored grief, her eyes just fixed ahead like a scared doe, but her neck pulsed fast and hard. I smoothed the adhesive ends of the bandage lightly to her skin and ran my thumb over her temple, feeling a single pulse. Mine or hers? Both. We were beating in sync.
Unable to resist, I drew my thumb down her scar—over the barely tactile ridge of damaged flesh, a timeline moment on her face. She brought her hand to my wrist cuff and to the cadence of my thumb, she stroked the cruel leather, moved in closer, her eyes almost apologetic, as if she had caused me pain.
For the first time she was soft, so feminine, that only the most guarded walls could have hidden it before, and I became conscious of the weight of my hand on her face—the weight of my life on hers. I had never felt my weight on someone else before, not this way. And then she leaned in more—her smooth cheek brushing my face, her lips testing, teasing mine. My mind went searching, trying to decipher the meaning by its parts until I could see her spread out on the shattered glass and rubble, both of us stripped bare, me savagely plunging into this broken woman over and over, glass ripping into her back and into my arms and knees until we came together, feral, bloody, and crying out in our shared release of anger and disillusionment.
I could have been eager if I allowed myself, if I could forget Devonlee. But Cam’s dry green eyes reminded me. Neither Rob’s weight nor mine would make her cry out in anger anymore. There was no room. And I didn’t have room for someone like her. She wasn’t consenting, but kicked and looking for any comfort besides crying. It wasn’t my style to be that kind of comfort, though—to take without lucid permission, or to give with nothing in return. I might have been a man of the worst kind, but I was just good enough not to use or be used.
“Not now,” I said to her lips, those eyes. “Not like this, Cam.”
She removed her hand slowly, stood. “I see … You may prefer women in pain, but crying just fools the heart into having silly hope. It makes us forgive the unforgivable only to be blindsided again.”
“Come on, this is—”
“I’ll assure you, Aidan. The day I cry in your presence is the day I want your presence. Get your stuff. You’ll miss your flight.”
She left me speechless, regretful. I let her go without an explanation of my actions or intent.

Lightly altered for public post, but ...

This is such a good thread! I'm loving these.

Here's my opening paragraph for Tragedy and Desire: An Adult Romance:

I was getting turned on just thinking about the night ahead of me. Grayson wasn't expecting me, much less the bottle of Asti or the box of chocolate-dipped strawberries I held as I climbed the stairs to his third floor apartment. He especially wasn't expecting the hot little negligee I wore beneath my knee-length bandage dress, though the stiletto heels were an everyday accessory he never failed to appreciate.

And here's the closing paragraph to that chapter:

No one dared ask me what was wrong, but the pitiful glances from the other passengers didn't escape my notice through my intermittent sobs as the bus pulled slowly away, leaving my life, as I knew it, behind me.
Again.

This is fun!

Here is the opening to my novella "Beautifully Executed" that's launching next month:

"Smiling prettily when all you want to do is plunge your freshly manicured hand into someone’s chest and rip their heart to tatters is hard work, but it pays well. I should know - I’ve been ignoring my homicidal instincts for decades. I may be pent up but at least I can buy myself a new pair of Valentino sandals to take the edge off when I need to."

Alex wrote: "Shannon wrote: "This is fun!"

Thanks, Alex!

This is the final paragraph from my soon-to-be released novel The Binding. Not a cliffhanger but it does lead into the next book in the series.

Brin stood in the yard watching his son vanish from sight, but his heart was filled with joy. He was able to see his son and he knew from the way the boy pulled to a halt and turned, the boy heard him. Quite a feat for someone with no training in the mind seek and who was only half of the Forest. As he stared at the empty road he was filled with a premonition that his son had a destiny to fulfill.