Opening Lines: Afterland by Lauren Beukes

Some novels have the ability to draw you in from the start. A single line or paragraph can grab your attention in such a way that the novel just demands to be read. Opening Lines is a feature where I'll share some of the best opening lines that hooked me.

'Look at me,' Cole says. 'Hey.' Checking Miles's pupils, which are still huge. Shock and fear and the drugs working their way out of his system. Scrambling to remember her first-aid training. Check list as life-buoy. He's able to focus, to speak without slurring. He was groggy in the car, getting away. But soon he'll be capable of asking difficult questions she is not ready to answer. About the blood on her shirt, for example.

AFTERLAND by Lauren Beukes

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In a future where most of the men are dead, Cole and her twelve-year-old son Miles are on the run from the most dangerous person she knows... her sister.

Miles is one of the lucky survivors of a global epidemic. But, in a world of women, that also makes him a hot commodity. The Department of Men wants to lock him away in quarantine, forever maybe.

A sinister cult of neon nuns wants to claim him for their own; the answer to their prayers. And boy traffickers are close on their heels, thanks to Billie, Cole's ruthless sister, who Cole thought she left for dead.

In a desperate chase across a radically changed America, Cole will do whatever it takes to get Miles to safety. Because she's all he's got