Opening sentences can help to indicate a book's tenor and tone and can help readers determine if it's a book they would like to read.
Here are the opening sentences for Water's Edge, a novel by Robert Whitlow, published by Thomas Nelson, July 19, 2011.
"Chiseled deep into the rock face of Stone Mountain, Georgia, is a football field-sized carving of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. Young Atlanta lawyer Tom Crane was on the brink of a promotion as important to him as Lee's selection as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia - litigation partner at Barnes, McGraw, and Crowther.
The phone on Tom's desk buzzed. He picked it up. 'Arthur Pelham from Pelham Financial is on line 802,' the receptionist said. 'Do you want the call?'"
Product description: "Ambitious young attorney Tom Crane is about to become a partner in a high-profile Atlanta law firm. But first he must clear one final matter from his docket-the closing of his deceased father's law practice in his hometown of Bethel, Georgia. Killed in a mysterious boating accident, John Crane didn't appear to leave his son anything except the hassle of wrapping up loose ends.
But instead of celebrating his promotion, Tom finds himself packing up his office, having suddenly been "consolidated." To add insult to injury, that same night his girlfriend breaks up with him . . . by letter.
Returning to Bethel with no sense of his future and no faith to fall back on, Tom just wants to settle his father's final affairs and get back to Atlanta. But then he runs into an unexpected roadblock-two million dollars of unclaimed money stashed in a secret bank account. And evidence that his father's death may not have been accidental. Worse still, a trail of data suggests his father played a role in an international fraud operation.
Tom follows the money into a tangled web of lies, theft, and betrayal. Along the way, he meets a woman who is as beguiling as she is beautiful. And her interest in the outcome of the case is just as high as his. She challenges Tom's assumptions . . . and his faith. Now he has to decide who he can trust-and how far a father's love can reach."
For more on the author, check out Robert Whitlow.
