Jack shook his head. 'Books. What is it with women and books? My sisters were the same. They were always buying books for boys they fancied.' Ellie bent down and picked up the stone and put it on the table. 'It's like sending a love letter without ha...
History-note: Wednesday 23 July 2014. A national day of mourning in the majestic land of windmills, wooden shoes and tulips. Today the first 40 bodies came back to us from the holocaustic plane accident that caused 288 innocent victims; the nine guar...
My son, Wolf, was born when I was past 40 and the author of a best-selling novel. That means he has grown up a middle-class child - one who sometimes asks me for stories of my childhood but knows nothing of what it means to grow up poor and afraid. I...
Knees suddenly weak, she reached for his forearms to stabilize herself. “You came for me.” He beamed, looking for all the world like a selfless, daring hero. “Don’t sound so surprised.” Dropping the cane, he pulled her into a crushing embra...
I’m only saying what you won’t. He’s a hunk, admit it. A tall, dark, exotic hunk who wants to bed you, and you must be a fucking nun, because it’s been three weeks since you met him and you’re going to have to remove the cobwebs from your v...
Now why do I feel like Little Red Riding Hood?" Daisy asked. Trav flashed a toothy smile and lunged for her neck. She squealed and squirmed, but he held on and chomped gently down her neck. She smacked his arm because she liked that a little too much...
Sometimes stars do fall to earth. It was true. They did and then became commonplace like the rest of the dirt on the planet. His star was one of a kind. He would never allow her to be like any other. Never allow her to be common or sullied. No, her p...
We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills and the winding streams with tangled growth, as 'wild'. Only to the white man was nature a 'wilderness' and only to him was the land 'infested' with 'wild' animals and 'savage' pe...
I’m not interested in any other man’s G-string. In fact,” she slipped her hands down the back of his pants and squeezed his tight, bare ass. “I prefer my man commando.” He nipped at her bottom lip. “In that case, we can search for a she-w...
IF I HAD a dime for every time I’ve heard “We’re all going to die” or “I’ll kill you,” I could afford a better apartment. You can only listen to so many threats of destruction, doom, or death before you start tuning them all out. So I f...
As we walk back, it feels like the city is engulfing us. Adrenalin still pours through our veins. Sparks flow through to our fingers. We've still been running in the mornings, but the city's different then. It's filled with hope and with bristles of ...
The color of defeat chokes her pupils, even though her nod and smile and uncomfortable sitting motion on the couch indicate that she is not finished yet. She will carry on, like all of us. Smile stubborn. Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in...
And even in the fever of epidemic arrests, when people leaving for work said farewell to their families every day, because they could not be certain they would return at night, even then almost no one tried to run away and only in rare cases did peop...
He drew her into his arms, gathering her close, and dusted kisses over her cheek, her hair. Wrapped in his embrace, Laurien closed her eyes, murmuring a sigh of exquisite satisfaction. A delightful drowsiness overtook her and she gave in to it, snugg...
I'd known since girlhood that I wanted to be a book editor. By high school, I'd pore over the acknowledgments section of novels I loved, daydreaming that someday a brilliant talent might see me as the person who 'made her book possible' or 'enhanced ...
Finally, she said: “I’m lonely” — it’s weird but you tell the wolves things, sometimes. You can’t help it, all these old wounds come open and suddenly you’re confessing to a wolf who never says anything back. She said: “I’m lonely,�...
It is my understanding from an intuitive relationship with animals that it is complete folly to try to figure out what is right or wrong for humans by observing what other animals are doing. Observe any animal and you will quickly figure out that a h...
I don’t know if I can shoot a man.” The old woman cackled. “Can’t shoot ‘em, but you can wallop ‘em to death with a poker.” Elizabeth blanched. “That was before I knew they were men.” “Man, beast, don’t matter. Something aims to...
The sound of your voice makes the chaos around me vanish. The smell of your hair calms my soul. The sight of your smile tames the wolf inside of me, and touching your skin…” He glanced at our joined hands. “Touching your skin makes the broken p...
You must not think of time as a quantity, a period, a measure. Look at the sky," Gwynneth said. "The moon has now slipped away to another night, into another world. It was not the time it was here that you remember, Faolan, but rather the luminescenc...
See, I was never a guy who had a whole heap of friends to belong to. Besides Greg Fienni, I never really had friends. I kind of stayed on my own. I hated it, but I was proud of it too. Cameron Wolfe needed no one. He didn't need to be amongst a pack....