Man, it's funny how many sites treat that first chapter like it's this big secret. I swear, I wanted to check out 'Begin Again' just last week after seeing the cover on a bestseller list, and I must've clicked through a dozen places. The author's own website actually had the cleanest look for a preview. The whole first chapter was right there, formatted for the web, no pop-ups asking for an email—which honestly shocked me. I've started to just assume the writer's site or their publisher's page is a dead-end, but I guess some are finally getting that you gotta give readers a taste to get them hooked.
That said, the official storefront on the big retailer's site (you know the one) also had the 'Look Inside' feature enabled, which is basically the same few chapters. The annoying part is sometimes it's only on the desktop site and the app doesn't show it, or vice-versa, so you gotta check both. I landed up reading the preview there too, just to see if the formatting was any different, and it was fine. I wish more novels would do this; it saves me from buying something only to find the prose style grates on me by page three.