Here is another first page hook from one of my YA horror /fantasy novels. 

Black Golgathia

The castle at Black Golgathia was built from the petrified bones of beings whose lives were taken away in their prime. The walls were blackened with sins not yet confessed, and so left unforgiven. It was a castle formed of guilt, bloodshed and prayers. Prayers stolen before they could ascend to heaven.

The walls whispered with the echoes of redemption’s forgotten travail. The murky windows gaped like the empty sockets of graying skulls. The gates were jutted and razor-like, the lost swords of fallen heroes, now forgotten. The turrets spiked in claw-like spirals under the ominous fog. They reminded one of lost souls scratching at the doors of eternity. Wretched, mangled and hopeless… buried alive forever under inescapable torments.

Every ghostly brick haunted mortal memories with debaucheries untold. There was something more than death here… more than death and less than life. There was undeath in this place. The towers of Black Golgathia threatened passers-by of something even more terrifying. The wind there whispered with the breathless sounds of a million tortured souls held for all eternity in a state of catatonic purgatory. It murmured a sickening warning audible only to the sub-conscious. ‘Step one foot in this direction and you could end-up as we have!’

Had safety been as simple as not walking in a particular direction, perhaps the castle would not have loomed above the providence of Lotus Shire. More probable, it would never have stood at all. Even staying on the straight and narrow was never enough. Neither strong moral codes nor location meant anything to Black Golgathia Castle.

Black Golgathia was not unlike the eyes of an otherworldly portrait. A seemingly faceless picture depicting an obsessed, nightmarish gaze that follows you across a crowded room. Incensed eyes that pry deep into the enthusiast’s soul and with wraith-like acuity judge the admirer well after the artwork is forgotten. The sinister remnants of this affixed stare were common place feelings for those who lived in the castle’s shadow.  


Now this as you can see is a simple setting... but NEVER underestimate the power of a setting to build tension to a climax or hook a reader!
That's my side of it!
Angel