“In my dream, the girl was drifting far, far below the crashing waves and the cries of the gulls in the cold, sunless depths of the North Sea.”
The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware.
“Miguel and Fernandez were shooting inaccurately at each other across the valley when the flying saucer landed.”
Ahead of Time, by Henry Kuttner (This is a short story collection. The above sentence is the beginning of the first story, “Or Else”.)
Stella Wallace met her family’s god when she was nine years old.
Revelator by Daryl Gregory
Does anyone besides me read the name of the book and author first, then the sentence?
mmm
“The body of the ocean liner dominated the ocean floor, a great husk of rot and rust and broken glass.”
Submerged, edited by S. C. Butler and Joshua Palmatier (Note that this is an anthology. The above sentence is from the first story, “Rust in Peace”, by Seanan McGuire)
“It was supposed to rain for real and that would have put a damper on the annual rain of lead.”
The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly
“Someone was digging a grave in one corner of the cemetery as I went in through the lychgate.”
The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins
I read Savages years before this thread was created. The first word were “F— you.” and no, it wasn’t censored. Furthermore, that was the entirety of the first chapter 
I’m currently reading Target by Simon Kernick, who writes crime novels. Sometimes from the police perspective, something from the criminal perspective, and sometimes they’re one and the same. In this case, there were three protagonists, a totally untrained civilian and two police officers.
The first sentence is “Sir Henry Portman was a man who liked his vices.”
IMO his best book is Relentless, where the main character is also a totally untrained civilian. I compare it to D&D games where someone forgot to DM-proof their character. The protagonist took no martial arts lessons, has access to no guns or any real weapons, isn’t a genius of some kind, is married and has two kids under the age of twelve. To say the protagonist was stressed out is an understatement.
“So now get up.”
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
“The question of how the world will end has been the subject of speculation and debate among poets and philosophers throughout history.”
The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking), Katie Mack
“I’ve always wanted to do something for the golfer who has everything.”
Unplayable Lies: The Only Golf Book You’ll Ever Need, by Dan Jenkins
“The conversation in the bar-parlour of the Anglers’ Rest had turned to the subject of the regrettably low standard of morality prevalent among the nobility and landed gentry of Great Britain.”
Mulliner Nights, by P. G. Wodehouse
“REMEMBER HER WITH HER FAVORITE FRAGRANCE”
The 1945 Sears Christmas Book Facsimile Edition
John Marshall Harlan was born on the precipice; on the very hinge of a society splitting in half.
The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero by Peter S. Canellos
“The applause did not subside; the cheering continued”
Inside Star Trek: The Real Story by Herb F. Solow and Robert H. Justman
“This two-year course in physics is presented from the point of view that you, the reader, are going to be a physicist.”
The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
“Captain Wolfgang Hoffman was a zealous executioner of Jews.”
Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
“See the child.”
– Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy
In order that they might enjoy their after-luncheon coffee in peace, the Crumpet had taken the guest whom he was entertaining at the Drones Club to the smaller and less-frequented of the two smoking-rooms.
« Uncle Fred Flits By », in The Plums of P.G.Wodehouse
“It was an ordinary day in the late Cretaceous.”
The Cretaceous Past, by Cixin Liu