Category: Quotations Page 1 of 26

EXCERPT from Rift in the Soul by Faith Hunter: Waiting in the MOC’s Foyer

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from Rift in the Soul by Faith Hunter

Waiting in the MOC’s Foyer

Patterns at my feet drew my eye. The foyer had been refloored in white marble. In the center, tiny pieces of gray marble, brass, and glistening steel had been inlaid and formed a pair of blades, the mosaic marble handles crossed. The single-edged blades themselves had been embedded in the floor; they appeared real but were strangely shaped. One blade looked as if an ax had been crossed with a machete and then a dragon had taken a bite out of the unsharp edge. I knew nothing about fighting with blades, but even I could tell the dragon-bitten section was for snagging an opponent’s blade out of their hand. The other blade was similar but without the snagging-dragon-bite, and a longer cutting edge. They were different but they were also clearly a pair of blades intended to be used together. The ends of the blades, where they should have attached to real handles—hilts?—were made of brass or gold and were shaped like dragon snouts, as if the steel was erupting from their mouths. Above and between the crossed blades was a green, faceted square.

“Ingram,” FireWind snapped. There was an edge of “pay attention” in the tone.

“What’s that?” I pointed at the floor.

“Ming’s new crest,” FireWind said, his tone still sharp. “Since she became MOC.”

As if my up-line boss hadn’t just snapped at me, I holstered my weapon and started taking pictures, sending them back to HQ. Aya grunted in approval. I was learning how to read him. I flipped on more lights and took shots of the parlor to the left and the hallways leading off into darkness. According to county records the clan home of the Master of the City was nearly twelve thousand square feet, so I wasn’t getting much of the house, but it was the first time I’d been in a position to film it.

As I worked, Rick explained to me, still a newbie, “It’s customary for the Master of the City, the most powerful Mithran in the territory, to have their crest inlaid in the entry floor of the city’s Council Chambers headquarters, to remind friends and visiting enemies alike who they would have to fight and conquer. Ming is both the MOC and head of the only vampire clan in Knoxville, so her home does double duty.”

Ming had been given MOC status by Jane Yellowrock. I remembered that. When I had taken photos of everything I could without wandering around, I pulled the psy-meter from my pocket and quickly took a reading of Ming’s foyer. The readings were all over the place.

At a warning signal from Rick, I slid the device away.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/ Copyright Faith Hunter

 


Read the rest in Rift in the Soul by Faith Hunter to see what happens from here in this pivotal novel for this universe.

My thanks to Psst…Promotions for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the book via NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group) they provided.

Highlights from February: Lines Worth Repeating

Highlights from the Month
Murder Crossed Her Mind

Murder Crossed Her Mind by Stephen Spotswood

…when you might be stepping into danger,it’s always better to err on the side of armed.

He had nabbed the shadowiest corner in the place, but I’d seen him close-up and in daylight, and I don’t know why he bothered hiding. He could’ve had his photograph in the dictionary under the entry “nondescript.” Medium height, medium build, hair brown, eyes brown, suit brown, face symmetrical but not so much that you’d notice. The only thing that marked him as anything other than a Fuller Brush Salesman was the relationship between him and the room. Those flat brown eyes (and I’m not knocking the shade, mine are teh color of mud) never stopped moving, if a fly happened to wander into the room, Faraday would’ve clocked it. If he could’ve he’d have frisked it for a weapon and wired it for sound.


Return of the Griffin

Return of the Griffin by JCM Berne

Rohan scratched his beard. “Well, I hope you’re wrong. There’s a first time for everything, right?”

“As there are many things that have never happened, there is not, in fact, a first time for everything.”

“You’re taking all the fun out of my apocalypse.”

“Of course. ‘Wei Li,’ my name, means, ‘she who removes joy from catastrophe.’ In my native language.”

“Really?”

“Of course not.”


Soundtrack of Silence

Soundtrack of Silence: Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life by Matt Haig

Not to try to bill myself as a relationship counselor, but when a beautiful woman—who is smart and driven enough to be in med school, fit enough to run a marathon, thoughtful enough to raise money for your rare neurological condition, and patient and confident enough to to move in with your parents—sticks with you as you relearn how to walk, you would be a fool not to marry her. Those are the rules.


Fortune Smiles

Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson

DJ understood that in South Korea, Americans were considered friends. He’d never really believed they were the enemy. After all, hadn’t Americans invented scratch-off lottery tickets, crystal meth, hundred-dollar bills and, most important, the catalytic converter?

“Do you believe in second chances?” she asked. “Can people change their nature?”

DJ leaned against the bus shelter. “Those are two different questions,” he said.


The Other Family Doctor

The Other Family Doctor: A Veterinarian Explores What Animals Can Teach Us About Love, Life, and Mortality by Karen Fine

Sometimes, this human-animal love is present in our lives but not central. We may have busy lives in which our pets are just a part. Perhaps we don’t think of them as a fundamental presence, but they are there, as solid and reliable as a comfortable chair to sink into at the end of each day. Our pets bear witness to the intimate, everyday details of our daily existence, weaving and threading their own personalities into our lives and households. With them, we are home. When they are gone, we feel their absence deeply.


Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

“There is nothing trivial about good coffee.”

“The problem is not the packing, I admit; I simply dislike traveling. Why people wish to wander to and fro when they could simply remain at home is something I will never understand. Everything is the way I like it here.”


City on Fire

City on Fire by Don Winslow

Danny misses the ocean when he’s not here.

It gets in your blood, like you got salt water running through you. The fishermen Danny knows love the sea and hate it, say it’s like a cruel woman who hurts you over and over again but you keep going back to her anyway.

Providence is a gray city.

Gray skies, gray buildings, gray streets. Gray granite as hard as the New England pilgrims who hacked it out of the quarries to build their City on the Hill. Gray as the pessimism that hangs in the air like the fog.

Gray as grief.


Another Girl

Another Girl by Peter Grainger

Green put a chair by his desk and made her sit down on it. The rest of them moved a little closer, made conversation, and tried not to stare at the damage done to her face. It would heal on the outside, of course. But it’s the other side we need to worry about.

…common sense and the law are not always the close bedfellows we’d like them to be…


A Quantum Love Story

A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen

“I had a breakfast shake. And, um, something for lunch. Something from the Hawke café. I can’t remember what.”

“Okay. So you had sustenance today. That’s not eating. Every single meal is a chance for a new experience.” He took a carton in each hand and waved them in front of her. “Smell this. This is eating. It’s different from sustenance.”

Such a thought seemed like a declaration in a foreign language. Of course she enjoyed a good restaurant, but when every second counted, taking the time to savor a single meal seemed, well, a little counterproductive.

“Time’s gonna pass, but if you slow down a little, you might enjoy it. That’s what eating is all about.”

So her truth proved to be stranger than fiction. Which made it harder than fiction


Spells for the Dead

Spells for the Dead by Faith Hunter

What I knew about alcohol could be written on my little fingernail in longhand…


(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

Opening Lines: City on Fire by Don Winslow

We all know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover (yet, publishing companies spend big bucks on cover design/art and we all do judge them that way). But, the opening sentence(s)/paragraph(s) are fair game. So, when I stumble on a good opening (or remember one and pull it off the shelves), I like to throw it up here. There are so few writers that can grab you like Winslow can from the get-go.

from City on Fire by Don Winslow:

Danny Ryan watches the woman come out of the water like a vision emerging from his dreams of the sea.

Except she’s real and she’s going to be trouble.

Women that beautiful usually are.

Danny knows that; what he doesn’t know is just how much trouble she’s really going to be. If he knew that, knew everything that was going to happen, he might have walked into the water and held her head under until she stopped moving.

But he doesn’t know that.

So, the bright sun striking his face, Danny sits on the sand out m front of Pasco’s beach house and checks her out from behind the cover of his sunglasses.

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Highlights from January: Lines Worth Repeating

Highlights from the Month
I’m back with this look at some of the best lines I came across last month. I wish a couple of the ARCs I read were published so I could use some lines from them–it probably would’ve almost doubled the size of this post.
The Blacktongue Thief

The Blacktongue Thie by Christopher Beuhlman

Only the strong, the rich, and the dying think truth is a necessity; the rest of us know it for a luxury

And there’s humanity in a glimpse—we’ve always got a copper for a stone idol, but none for the beggar in its shadow.

To conquer a kingdom, a thousand is not enough. To free a prisoner, ten is too many.


Miles Morales Suspended

Miles Morales Suspended by Jason Reynolds

The moon was a lightbulb dangling from a high ceiling, But in Brooklyn, there were no stars. Not in the sky. Miles, climbed along side his building up to the roof. Once there, he looked out at the New York City skyline and imagined that all the stars that were supposed to be there had fallen, and now sparkled much closer to the ground.


Charm City Rocks

Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norman

For parents, the drawback to loving their children so much is the anxiety that comes with it-—like love’s neurotic cousin…

He’d like to know what she almost said. One of the worst things about being a person is that when you don’t know something, you assume the absolute worst.

Another one of the worst things about being a person: when we’re not busy imagining the worst, too often we allow ourselves to imagine the best, and that almost never pans out.


Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

“I’m sorry about before,” I said. Seeing as we were shoulder to shoulder, I spoke outwards, lobbing my apology into the void of the mountain. It’s the only way blokes know how to show humility, by pretending we’re at a urinal.

Witty repartee is not well serviced by truth.


Calculated Risks

Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire

I hate it when people tell me not to be afraid. They never do that when something awesome is about to happen. No one says “don’t be afraid” and hands you an ice cream cone, or a kitten, or tickets to Comic-Con.


Hacker

Hacker by Duncan MacMaster

<

The campus was bustling.

The air was fresh.

However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there were a pair of eyes boring holes into the back of my head. I turned around suddenly, and among the milling throng of students and staff going back and forth, I did catch someone doing an instant turn into a doorway.

Were the police tailing me?

Was the killer tailing me?

Was I being a paranoid moron?

All three were distinct possibilities.


The City of Scale

The City of Scales by M. T. Miller

Ask, receive, then grieve over the folly of your desire.

The person behind the counter rose; a burly, shirtless creature resembling an oversized egg pretending to be a man.

But this hunt, not unlike a broken latrine, is a gift that keeps on giving.

“Suggestions?”

“None,” said the captain. “Unless someone finds us and we have to subdue them. If that happens, we should move at that moment.”

“No complaints from me,” Amelie said, knowing that she was telling a lie. If things turned sour, she would grumble all the way to her dying breath.

“Easy, no?”

“Not as easy as drowning,” the captain said. “But it could work.

“And my professional opinion is that I have no idea.”


Dream Town

Dream Town by Lee Goldberg

“You’re cruel, which you’ve already proven today by trying to starve me to death,” Duncan said. “We skipped lunch.”

“How is that my fault?”

“You were driving,” he said. “We were caught up in the momentum of the case.”

“He who holdeth the steering wheel decideth whether to driveth- through or not to driveth- through,” Duncan said. “It’s in the Bible. Or maybe it was Shakespeare. I can’t remember, because I’m too hungry.

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

Opening Lines: Hacker by Duncan MacMaster

Head & Shoulders used to tell us that, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” That’s true for wearing dark shirts, and it’s especially true for books. Sometimes the characters will hook the reader, sometimes the premise, sometimes it’s just knowing the author—but nothing beats a great opening for getting a reader to commit.

I will not start this story at the moment I found an eyeball floating in my Coke.

from Hacker by Duncan MacMaster
Hacker Cover
Hard to top this. You have to keep going, right?

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Opening Lines: The Last Dance by Mark Billingham

We all know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover (yet, publishing companies spend big bucks on cover design/art and we all do judge them that way). But, the opening sentence(s)/paragraph(s) are fair game. So, when I stumble on a good opening (or remember one and pull it off the shelves), I like to throw it up here. This one characterizes so much of this book–good, solid detective/procedural kind of writing, served up with a perfectly off-kilter line that doesn’t belong there, but improves the whole thing so much that it actually has to be there.

from The Last Dance by Mark Billingham:

The coloured lights from more than a million lamps seem to dance above the town’s main street and their reflections shimmer on the surface of the black sea just beyond. On the street itself, a thousand neon signs dazzle and buzz and the slow-moving traffic has become a pulsating necklace of red and white beads. To the casual observer, gazing down from the top of the Tower perhaps, or from a penthouse apartment in one of the expensive blocks that have sprung up in recent years, this might be Las Vegas.

If that casual observer really squinted.

And had never been to Las Vegas.

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EXCERPT from Nameless Queen by Marie Sinadjan: Who is She?

We continue to celebrate Release Day for Marie Sinadjan’s Nameless Queen here with this excerpt.


from Nameless Queen by Marie Sinadjan

Standing on the bank of the river Gjoll, Hel listened to the names of the Dead in the wind. This was her life now, as difficult and strange as it was to accept.

The Allfather had banished her from Asgard for treason, trapping her in Niflheim and erasing her name. However, she eventually realized that the realm itself was alive and had other plans. Niflheim did not intend for her to merely wallow in her despair and slowly starve herself to death.

The realm wanted her to be its caretaker.

A line of longships stretched toward the horizon and disappeared into the mist. In the ships were bodies, and the first one had come alive at Hel’s accidental touch.

The man lurched like he had been holding his breath underwater for far too long. “Where am I?”

For a moment she stared back at him with an equal measure of fear. What just happened? Was it her appearance that scared him?

But it soon became clear that it was not the case. “Who am I?” he asked her, distraught.

His name came to her in the wind. “Egil Hringson,” she repeated.

Her eyes flew wide as the man clung to her and wept like a child. She hadn’t realized how important it was for the Dead to be remembered, not until then. And while she did not have the details of his life, revealing his name seemed to help him find peace.

She did not sleep for three whole days, traversing the bank of the river to bring the newly deceased out of their stupor. There were surely hundreds of them; she’d stopped bothering to count after she reached twenty. Some ships had elaborate carvings on the prow, while others were simple wooden vessels that appeared to have been put together at the last minute. None of that mattered to her, however. It was not her place to judge or choose who awakened in this realm, unlike Odin the Allfather and his band of Valkyries.

At first, only the old woman helped her. But after three days of tireless work by the river, the inhabitants of Niflheim came to see that she was something more than merely a deranged soul who could not embrace the fact that she was dead. One by one, they joined her, seeing those she’d awakened into settlements and communities. Most of them were patterned and named after actual Midgardian locations, which provided a small comfort to the Dead.

“Who is she?” Egil asked the old woman when he returned to the river the day after his awakening.

“Hel,” the old woman answered.

It was not Hel’s real name, but it was all she had.

The one she had been born with had been taken away from her.

 


Interested in the rest? Go grab your copy of Nameless Queen by Marie Sinadjan now at https://books2read.com/NamelessQueen!


Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

Archie Goodwin on Voting

It’s Election Day in the U.S. tomorrow, so I thought I’d share this little bit from Archie Goodwin to commemorate it.

Archie GoodwinThe most interesting incident Tuesday morning was my walking to a building on Thirty-fourth Street to enter a booth and push levers on a voting machine. I have never understood why anybody passes up that bargain. It doesn’t cost a cent, and for that couple of minutes, you’re the star of the show, with top billing. It’s the only way that really counts for you to say I’m it, I’m the one that decides what’s going to happen and who’s going to make it happen. It’s the only time I really feel important and know I have a right to. Wonderful. Sometimes the feeling lasts all the way home if somebody doesn’t bump me.

–Archie Goodwin
from A Family Affair

Opening Lines: Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David

Head & Shoulders used to tell us that, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” That’s true for wearing dark shirts, and it’s especially true for books. Sometimes the characters will hook the reader, sometimes the premise, sometimes it’s just knowing the author—but nothing beats a great opening for getting a reader to commit.

Going back a couple of decades for this one, but I came across it recently and it just about pulled me in for a day or three.

As I stood there with the sword in my hand, the blade dripping blood on the floor, I couldn’t help but wonder if the blood belonged to my father.

The entire thing had happened so quickly that I wasn’t quite sure how to react. Part of me wanted to laugh, but most of me fairly cringed at what had just occurred. I didn’t do particularly well with blood. This tended to be something of a hardship for one endeavoring to become a knight, dedicated to serving good King Runcible of Isteria, a ruler who more often than not had his heart in the right place.

The recently slain knight also had his heart in the right place. This had turned out to be something of an inconvenience for him. After all, if his heart had been in the wrong place, then the sword wouldn’t have pierced it through, he wouldn’t be dead, and I wouldn’t have been in such a fix.

from Sir Apropos of Nothing by Peter David
Sir Apropos of Nothing Cover

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Opening Lines: Nasty, Brutish, and Short by Scott Hershovitz

We all know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover (yet, publishing companies spend big bucks on cover design/art and we all do judge them that way). But, the opening sentence(s)/paragraph(s) are fair game. So, when I stumble on a good opening (or remember one and pull it off the shelves), I like to throw it up here. This one grabbed me with the voice and the humor–this was not going to be your typical book about philosophy.

from Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids by Scott Hershovitz:

“I nee a philosopher.” Hank was standing in the bathroom, half-naked.

“What?” Julie asked.

“I nee a philosopher.”

“Did you rinse?”

“I nee a philosopher,” Hank said, getting more agitated.

“You need to rinse. Go back to the sink.”

“I nee a philosopher!” Hank demanded.

“Scott!” Julie shouted. “Hank needs a philosopher.”

I am a philosopher. And no one has ever needed me. I rushed to the bathroom. “Hank, Hank! I’m a philosopher. What do you need?”

He looked puzzled. “You are not a philosopher,” he said sharply.

“Hank, I am a philosopher. That’s my job. What’s bothering you?”

He opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. “Hank, what’s bothering you?”

“DER’S FOMETHING FUCK IN MY FEETH.”

A flosser. Hank needed a flosser—one of those forked pieces of plastic with dental floss strung across it. In retrospect, that makes sense. A flosser is something you could need, especially if you are two and your purpose in life is to pack landfills with cheap pieces of plastic that provided a temporary diversion. A philosopher is not something that people need. People like to point that out to philosophers.

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