Great beginnings

Blue foxes are so curiously like stones that it is a matter for wonder. When they lie beside them in winter there is no hope of telling them apart from the rocks themselves; indeed, they're far trickier than white foxes, which always cast a shadow or look yellow like the snow.
-- From The Blue Fox by Sjon

On the morning after the Feds burned down her house and took her father, Havaa woke from dreams of sea anemones.
-- From A Constellation of a Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

Once upon a time, a girl named September grew very tired indeed of her parents' house, where she washed the same pink-and-yellow teacups and matching gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow, and played with the same small and amiable dog. Because she had been born in May, and because she had a mole on her left cheek, and because her feet were very large and ungainly, the Green Wind took pity on her and flew to her window one evening just after her twelfth birthday.
-- From The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland on a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente

Once upon a time, a girl named September had a secret. Now, secrets are delicate things. They can fill you up with sweetness and leave you like a cat who has found a particularly fat sparrow to eat and did not get clawed or bitten even once while she was about it. But they can also get stuck inside you, and very slowly boil up your bones for their bitter soup.

-- From The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne Valente

It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit and ended up with my being eaten by a carnivorous plant.

-- From Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde