I am not going to let him win, Guillaume. Not this time. I could not keep him from making my mother pay the price for our failed rebellion. Fifteen years she has been his prisoner, fifteen years! And she is his prisoner, for all that she no longer wa...
I thought you'd be gone by now." Velkan "Hardly, I have to much to do." Esperetta "Such as?" Velkan "Apologize to you." Esperetta "Why would you do that?" Velkan "Because I'm stupid and pigheaded. Judgmental. Unforgiving. Mistrustful--you can stop me...
Cormag caught his hand and pulled him back until they were facing each other. “I think you're amazing,” he said, blurting the words out. Lachlan smiled, completely shocked and thrilled by how captivating he found him. He had never thought this co...
Allow me to give my lord one last piece of counsel," the old man had said, "the same counsel I once gave my brother when we parted for the last time. He was three-and-thirty when the Great Council chose him to mount the Iron Throne. A man grown with ...
People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept...
Happiness, she would explain, was when a person felt good, light, creative, content, loving and loved, and free. An unhappy person felt as if there were barriers crushing her desires and the talents she had inside. A happy woman was one who could exe...
You have a minute and a half left." "Fine," she snapped. "Then I'll reduce this conversation to one single fact. Today I had six callers. Six! Can you recall the last time I had six callers?" Anthony just stared at her blankly. "I can't," Daphne cont...
If your boss asks you to do a task... You'll stay late for work to make sure it's done. You'll be confident that your boss wouldn't have asked you if he/she didn't trust that you could do it. You wouldn't allow anyone or anything to distract you. No ...
Like so many other things in the previous year, my politics had also been retooled by maternity. I began to suspect that modern feminism had gotten it at least partly wrong. . . . In devaluing the home and the vast range of domestic work--childrearin...
I want to introduce the world to my princess.’ In a state of disbelief, Izzy took his hand and they walked back towards the stage. Happiness bubbled up inside her as it slowly dawned on her that this was real. She lifted her face to look at him. �...
Do you hear that?” he says. “You mean the crashing thunder and pounding rain?” He shakes his head. I listen closely, trying to filter o ut the sounds of the storm. Then I hear it. A whooshing sound with a fast buzzing underne ath it. It’s so,...
He stepped closer with an intense, thoughtful look on his face. "We shouldn't do this." Her heart gave a hard thud. "You probably can't kiss." Another step closer. "What does the doctor say?" "We never kissed," she deadpanned. "Dr. Pratt and I are no...
A formal period in life where there isn’t the worry of another person’s dramas and insecurities can be of great advantage, especially when used for growing into the full and wholesome beings we intended to be when choosing to come to this materia...
Derek's breath touched Sara's throat in unsteady urges. "Sometimes," he whispered, "I'm so close to you ... and I'm still not close enough. I want to share your breath ... every beat of your heart." He cradled her head in both his hands, his mouth ho...
At their core, Tiger Eyes, Forever..., and Sally J. Freeman are all books about teenage issues, but to an adult reader, the parents' story lines seem to almost overshadow their daughters. I'm bringing an entirely new set of experiences to these novel...
In an essay titled A View From the Front Line, Jencks described her experience with cancer as like being woken up midflight on a jumbo jet and then thrown out with a parachute into a foreign landscape without a map: "There you are, the future patient...
He felt so tired, so weary of holding on with an iron grip to something he knew was slipping away. “You can’t make someone love you,” he said. Her hand stilled for a moment, the dirty tissue between her fingers. “True.” “Even if you love ...
My daughter, Carly, has been in and out of drug treatment facilities since she was thirteen. Every time she goes away, I have a routine: I go through her room and search for drugs she may have left behind. We have a laugh these days because Carly say...
The last clear thought I have is of my grandmother’s rust-colored wall clock ticking away in the darkness of my apartment—my sanctuary where I dreamed and desired and hoped for goodness and love. I wonder how long that clock will tick without any...
There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under my jurisdiction. There are certain lottery tickets I can buy, thereby increasing my odds of finding contentment. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact wi...
Yet what keeps me from dissolving right now into a complete fairy-tale shimmer is this solid truth, a truth which has veritably built my bones over the last few years - I was not rescued by a prince; I was the administrator of my own rescue. My thoug...
