“Yet she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t stop writing. She was like a medium receiving messages from the dead.”

“Sitting down in the evenings became a kind of torture, a bleak realization of her talents laid out against the bright shimmering fabric of her dreams. Yet she couldn’t stop, she couldn’t give up so easily. To stop writing completely produced in her a bleak and relentless depression, so she stubbornly persisted, plodding through endless drafts and revisions, telling herself she was learning something each time.”

“She was aware that she stood with her mouth gaping open like a fool but she just couldn’t stop herself. He was beautiful, handsome, sexy… Oh my God! He’s smoking hot!”

“Contact would hurt, might be fatal, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. Obsession or compulsion, she didn’t know, but she did know that before this was over, she’d either end up in Dmitri’s bed . . . or one of them would bleed darkest red.”

“She couldn’t get any farther away inside from her skin. She couldn’t get away.”

“Instead, she poured herself another drink. Tinsley was horrible, yes, but at least she was open about it. Callie couldn’t help feeling like Brett and Jenny were just as bad … just more secretive. But maybe it was just the wine talking. Maybe.”