Best Beginnings - also known as Setting the Hook

How to start your story?  That's a big question and one that has a significant outcome on whether Readers will be so hooked that they can't put your book down, or perhaps so unimpressed that they don't buy your book.

The experts say to start your story in the middle of the action. Drop your reader into the scene and make them *want* to know what happens next.  Here's an article by Alan Rinzler that talks about setting the hook.

I did this same test last January and decided to do it again.  I pulled some of my favorite recent reads from the shelf to see how they started.  Here's what I found:

From COFFEEHOUSE ANGEL by Suzanne Selfors:  "The first time I saw him he was lying in the alley behind my grandmother's coffeehouse. I figured he was some sort of bum."

From PARANORMALCY by Kiersten White: "'Wait - did you - you just yawned!' The vampire's arms raised over his head in the classic Dracula pose, dropped to his sides."

From BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl:  "I used to think our town, buried in the South Carolina backwoods, stuck in the muddy bottom of the Santee River valley, was the middle of nowhere."

From PLAIN KATE by Erin Bow:  "A long time ago, in a market town by a looping river, there lived an orphan girl called Plain Kate."

From FIRE by Kristin Cashore: "Larch often thought that if it had not been for his newborn son, he never would have survived his wife Mikra's death."

Here's the opening to THE FAERIE RING by Kiki Hamilton :-):  "'You wouldn't be here pickin' pockets, would you?' Tiki jumped as the dark figure loomed over the corner where she sat pretending to be half-asleep."

What do you think of these openings?  Which intrigues you the most?

Post your favorite opening!

~Kiki