First Page Friday #7

First Page Friday is a new weekly feature at Pen to Paper, where I will post the first page of a (probably) Young Adult book, that I am particularly excited about, or have already read and loved.

Heaven
by Christoph Marzi
Publisher: Orchard Books
Pages: 416
Release date: 2nd February 2012
Buy: Book Dep | Amazon UK | Amazon US | Waterstones
Find on Goodreads

Read my review

Goodreads synopsis:

The night that Heaven lost her heart was cold and moonless. But the blade that sliced it out was warm with her dark blood...

David Pettyfer is taking a shortcut over the dark rooftops of London’s brooding houses, when he literally stumbles across Heaven: a strange, beautiful, distraught girl who says that bad men have stolen her heart. Yet she’s still alive...

And so begins David and Heaven’s wild, exciting and mysterious adventure—to find Heaven’s heart, and to discover the incredible truth about her origins.

Part thriller, part love story and part fairy tale, this brilliantly original novel from a bestselling German author will take your breath away...

The First Page

My Thoughts...

I really loved this, when I read it earlier this year. It definitely has a huge serving of fairy tale and magic to it, but there is also a much darker side, running alongside that. It's because of this that it really reminds me of Neil Gaiman. It's almost like a mixture of his Stardust and Neverwhere, with the magic from Stardust, and the dark, London underworld of Neverwhere.
Looking at this first page again is wonderful. Now that I've read it, I can appreciate the power of this opening page even more. Personally, I think that even the first line is enough to draw you in. You begin to immediately ask questions, like "how did she lose her heart?", which quickly turns to "who would steal a person's heart?", when we read the second line.
As for the the first page, as a whole, I think it really showcases the dark atmosphere that punctuates the entire book. We don't really have the sense of the magic quite yet, but that does come very soon, and it's definitely worth picking up, just to find out what that is.

I really did love this book, so if you're as gripped by this first page as I am, I seriously recommend that you read the rest! It's not one to be missed.

Have you read Heaven? Did you like it as much as I did?
If you've not read it, does this first page make you want to? Let us know in the comments below :)