This group knows its protagonists!

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Congratulations to everyone who played!! We were especially chuffed to see how many of you knew the lines from our own books. 

 Here are the answers...

1
My name is [NAME]. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the deathcup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.
Mary Katherine Blackwood in We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson 

2
My name is [NAME]. I'm a private investigator, licensed by the state of California. I'm thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids. The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind.
Kinsey Milhone in A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton

3
There are some men who enter a woman’s life and screw it up forever. Morelli did this to me—not forever, but periodically.
Stephanie Plum, One for the Money by Janet Eanovich 

4
I could smell him--or rather the booze on his breath--before he even opened dthe door. But my sense of smell is pretty good, probably better than yours. The key scratched against the lock and finally found the slot. The door opened and in, with a little stumble, came Bernie Little, founder and part owner (his ex-wife walked off with the rest) of the Little Detective Agency. I'd seen him look worse, but not often.
Chet (the dog) in Dog On It by Spencer Quinn's (aka Peter Abrahams) 

5
I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915. In my seven weeks of peripatetic reading amongst the sheep (which tended to move out of my way) and the gorse bushes (to which I had painfully developed an instinctive awareness) I had never before stepped on a person.
Mary Russell in The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie R. King 

6.
I thought: should I be worried? I was under arrest. In a town where I’d never been before. Apparently for murder. But I knew two things. First, they couldn’t prove something had happened if it hadn’t happened. And second, I hadn’t killed anybody. Not in their town, and not for a long time, anyway.
Jack Reacher in The Killing Floor by Lee Child

7.
[NAME] could hear the helicopter up there, somewhere, above the darkness, circling up in the light. Why didn’t it land? Why didn’t it bring help? Harry was moving through a smoky, dark tunnel and his batteries were dying. The beam of the flashlight grew weaker every yard he covered. He needed help. He needed to move faster. He needed to reach the end of the tunnel before the light was gone and he was alone in the black.
Harry Bosch in The Black Echo by Michael Connelly 

8.
It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.
Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler 

9.
I am well aware that my name is ridiculous. It was not ridiculous before I took this job four years ago. I’m a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, and my name is [FIRST NAME]. [FIRST NAME - LAST NAME]. A joke. Before I took the job, [FIRST NAME] was just a name, given to me by my estranged mother, who left me so long ago that I have no memory of her, just a few photos and the stories Gran has told me. Gran said my mother thought [FIRST NAME] was a cute name for a girl, that it conjured apple cheeks and pigtails, neither of which I have, as it turns out. I’ve got simple, dark hair that I maintain in a sharp, neat bob. I part my hair in the middle—¬the exact middle. I comb it flat and straight. I like things simple and neat.
Molly Maid in The Maid by Nira Prose

10.
My name is [NAME]. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,057. Eight years ago, when I first met Siobhan, she showed me this picture
[sad face] 
and I knew that it meant 'sad,' which is what I felt when I found the dead dog. Then she showed me this picture
[smiley face] 
and I knew that it meant 'happy', like when I'm reading about the Apollo space missions, or when I am still awake at 3 am or 4 am in the morning and I can walk up and down the street and pretend that I am the only person in the whole world.
Christopher John Francis Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

11
[NAME] wore a black brocade dress, very much pinched in around the waist. Mechlin lace was arranged in a cascade down the front of the bodice. She had on black lace mittens, and a black lace cap surmounted the piled-up masses of her snowy hair. She was knitting, something white and fleecy. Her pale blue eyes, benignant and kindly, surveyed her nephew and her nephew’s guests with gentle pleasure.
Jane Marple in "The Tuesday Night Club" (a short story) by Agatha Christie 

12.
As the last of the coffee burbled and sputtered into the pot, I hurried out onto the dock to retrieve Connie’s copy of the Key West Citizen. I smoothed the paper on the café table in the kitchen and sat down for breakfast. Evinrude splayed out on the chair next to me, grooming his gray stripes into their morning order. I took a sip of coffee and almost spit it out when I saw Kristen’s head shot looming from the box on the front page reserved for the crime report. 
Hayley Snow in An Appetite for Murder by Lucy Burdette 

13.
[NAME]'s holiday began well. As he turned the car into the lane, a shaft of sun broke through the clouds and lit a patch of rolling Yorkshire moor as if someone had thrown the switch on a celestial spotlight.
Drystone walls ran like pale runes across the brilliant green of pasture, where luminous sheep nibbled, unconcerned with their importance in the composition. The scene seemed set off in time as well as space, and gave him the sensation of viewing a living tapestry, a world remote and utterly unattainable. The clouds shifted again, the vision fading as swiftly as it had come, and he felt an odd shiver of loss at its passing.
Duncan Kincaide in A Share in Death by Deborah Crombie
 
14.
There are two disadvantages to being a minor royal. First, one is expected to behave as befits a member of the ruling family, without being given the means to do so. One is expected to kiss babies, open fetes, put in appearances at Balmoral (suitable kilted) and carry trains at weddings. Ordinary means of employment are frowned upon.”
Lady Georgie in Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen

15.
"It was one hell of a night to throw away a baby. The cold pinched at NAME’s nose and made him jam his hands deep into his coat pockets, grateful that the Washington County Hospital had a police parking spot just a few yards from the ER doors. A flare of red startled him, and he watched as an ambulance backed out of its bay silently, lights flashing. The driver leaned out of his window, craning to see his way between cement rails.
Russ Van Alstyne in In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming 

16.
[NAME] had thrown up after the verdict.
She’d twisted her damp hair away from her face, avoided the mirror, and contemplated how long she could hide in the Suffolk County Courthouse ladies’ room. Forever would be good. Instead, she’d gritted out a smile for the scrum of cameras as Channel 11’s defense attorney promised her television colleagues an immediate appeal of the jury’s decision. The two then marched down the granite steps of the courthouse, the lawyer’s pin-striped arm protectively across Jane’s shoulder, as if a million-dollar damage verdict were the honorable cost of doing journalism business. 
Jane Ryland in The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan 

17. "Oh, I just love that Maxim de Winter," Violet La Rue said, her knitting needles clicking together as if to emphasize her words. "He gives me the shivers."
"Him?"Nancy Peyton asked. "He's not nearly as scary as Mrs. Danvers."
[NAME] glanced up from her knitting at the two ladies sitting across the circle from her. It was crafternoon Thursday, where membes of the crafternoon club gathered at the Briar Creek Library to do a craft--currently they were knitting--and discuss the assigned book of the week. 
Lindsay Norris in Books Can Be Deceiving by Jenn McKinlay

Did you notice that most of the answers are the author's debut novel, or first in a opular series.

What's a main character whose "voice" you love to listen to (aka: read) and if you have a short quote, share it.