Good Hook

"When Jake Matthews walked out the door for his early morning run, he had no idea he’d be dead in twenty-three minutes. Nor that it would begin the biggest adventure of his life."

I jotted this down this morning. I've been working on a book off and on for a couple of years. You know, it's that book, the one that won't go away, that you have completely plotted out and know it inside and out, yet it is just too big of an idea to throw yourself completely into at this time in your life, so it percolates, always there, but never quite right, even while I'm actually working on it between other projects. The beginning, those first few crucial lines have never been right. I've rewritten them a quintillion times, but today I thought I had something good. I didn't realize how right until my 15 year old daughter came in and saw my scratchy lines, lying on my desk and startled me by saying, "Is this a life after death thing? or does he have an adventure in only 23 minutes?" I had hooked her. She had to know. So much so that instead of running off to do her own thing, she sat down at my computer while I pulled up the first chapter (all that's written so far) and she read it right then and there.

Yeah, I'm smiling.

So what's been your favorite first lines that hooked you?