“...a sad sort of vulnerability was wafting from her, making the night smell like maple syrup.”

“The area was encompassed in a bubble of warm, fragrant steam from the funnel cake deep fryers. It smelled like sweet vanilla cake batter you licked off a spoon.”

“My favorite books are the ones that make me smile for hours after reading them. I want that for my readers, for the sweetness to linger. Sort of like chocolate, but without the calories.”

“She accepted it from then on. Books liked her. Books wanted to look after her.”

“Everything was quiet, a strange sort of quiet that felt like an unfinished sentence.”

“Josey?” She heard her mother’s voice in the hall, then the thud of her cane as she came closer. “Please don’t tell her I’m here,” the woman in the closet said, with a strange sort of desperation. Despite the cold outside, she was wearing a cropped white shirt and tight dark blue jeans that sat low, revealing a tattoo of a broken heart on her hip. Her hair was bleached white-blond with about an inch of silver-sprinkled dark roots showing. Her mascara had run and there were black streaks on her cheeks. She looked drip-dried, like she’d been walking in the rain, though there hadn’t...”

“Don't let anyone see your vulnerable spots. Once they knew how to hurt you, they would do it again and again.”