See, I would pick up a book based on the second paragraph, but I don't read much "epic" fantasy--I would be picking it up based on the assumption that the woman is the protagonist (or at least a major character), while green_knight assumed for hir experience with the genre that the woman is not going to have a role in a novel with a male protagonist, and probably exists solely to orphan the hero by dying tragically. Which would put me off. So there's obviously some role that knowledge of genre conventions is playing here as well.

The first paragraph is just boring. That kind of opening is fine in a movie, but "scenic openings" almost never work in a book, and the setting has to be very striking and non-generic for them to work. (Also, people with long hair who don't pull it back while riding/fighting/whatever trip my yeah-right-o-meter. Presumably the woman likes spitting hair out of her mouth and wiping it out of her eyes every time it's windy.)