Tag: 2024 Retrospectives

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 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: 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 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: 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 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 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 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 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 by Faith Hunter

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

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

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 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 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 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 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 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 by Duncan MacMaster

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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 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 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)