Sometimes you weren’t supposed to share pain. Sometimes it was best just to deal with it alone.

You can’t change where you came from, but you can change where you go from here.

She went to the window. A fine sheen of sugary frost covered everything in sight, and white smoke rose from chimneys in the valley below the resort town. The window opened to a rush of sharp early November air that would have the town in a flurry of activity, anticipating the tourists the colder weather...

Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people’s legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world.

Love always hurts. That’s one thing I know you know. But it’s worth it. That’s what you don’t know. Yet.

It was a remarkable realization to Eby, that we are what we’re taught. That was why the Morris women were what they were. It was because they knew no different.

Eby wanted to say so much to her. She wanted to say that waking up is the most important part of grieving, that so many women in their family failed to do it, and she was proud of Kate for fighting her way back. But Eby didn’t say anything. She could fix a lot of...

But that would leave Paxton to fend for herself, and the last thing any woman wanted in this kind of situation was to look around and see all the people who could help her doing nothing.

Candy is my religion.

Some of Bay’s fondest memories were of lying under the apple tree in the summer while Claire gardened and the apple tree tossed apples at her like a dog trying to coax its owner into playing catch.

I was just telling Claire about a guy I met in bread class. I hate him, but he could be my soul mate.

It was the best first kiss in the history of first kisses. It was as sweet as sugar. And it was warm, as warm as pie. The whole world opened up and I fell inside. I don’t know where I was, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care because the only person who mattered was...

He claimed the waters must have, indeed, been healing, because look how hard his journey was on him to get there, and how easy it was on him to get home.

I’m a huge fan of Alice Hoffman, Fred Chappell and Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Doctors say there’s no such thing as chemo brain, but ask any chemo patient.

Don’t give up because of the dark days. Succeed in spite of them. The dark days make the bright days seem even brighter. So bright you can hardly stand it.

There’s an old hymn called ‘How Can I Keep from Singing?’ That’s what writing feels like to me. I have to write. It’s intrinsic to who I am. So it was a natural choice for me to try to pursue writing as a career. Truthfully, though, I still daydream about how fun it would be...

Eby knew all too well that there was a fine line when it came to grief. If you ignore it, it goes away, but then it always comes back when you least expect it. If you let it stay, if you make a place for it in your life, it gets too comfortable and it...

It was like the way you wanted sunshine on Saturdays, or pancakes for breakfast. They just made you feel good.

Motherhood is hard enough without judgement from others who don’t know the whole story.

She looked like autumn, when leaves turned and fruit ripened.

He wasn’t used to people saying no, and Eby felt sorry for him, the way she’d always felt sorry for those who had everything and it still wasn’t enough.

Cancer is too real, and too awful, and I can’t make it good or magical. I couldn’t even read a book where a character had cancer, for a while… But now I’ve reached a point where I don’t think about cancer nonstop anymore, and sometimes I worry about that – I’m going to forget what...

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.

Adolescence is like having only enough light to see the step directly in front of you.

He stared up at the moon, which looked like a giant hole in the sky, letting light through to the other side.

Sitting at the old patio table she’d cleared of leaves, she smiled and leaned back. The stars looked twisted in the limbs of the trees, like Christmas lights. She felt like part of the hollow around her was filling. She’d come here with too many expectations.

To this day she could make tap water boil just by kissing him.

She knew him in that way you can only know a person as a child. Like if you cracked away the adult shell, you’d find that child, happily sitting inside, smiling at you.

Don’t be vain. What you look like doesn’t matter. It’s the deed that matters.

…Agatha had declared that her friendship to Georgie still existed, as if it was a living, breathing thing, something that came to life the moment it happened and didn’t just go away because they no longer acknowledged it.

It felt as though they were the only people in the world, two young women about to bury the symbol of their helplessness, as if that’s all it would take to make them whole again.

Fate never promises to tell you everything up front. You aren’t always shown the path in life you’re supposed to take. But if there was one thing she’d learned in the past few weeks, it was that sometimes, when you’re really lucky, you meet someone with a map.

You’d be surprised how easy some things can be, things you never thought you’d do, when you take self-respect out of the equation.

People always say life is too short for regrets. But the truth is, it’s too long.

…everyone knows that road, the one leading out of town into a deep green expanse of pastures and old farmhouses, which at first makes it seem like you’re entering a fairy tale, something sweet and old fashioned and lost in time. But, like all fairy tales, the beginning is always beautiful, a ruse to draw...

You shouldn’t leave your window unlocked. Who knows who could get in?” Della Lee said, single-handedly debunking the long-held belief that if you dotted your…

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...

I think my characters are more wish fulfillments than they are mirrors. They see things I don’t and live in a world I can only enter through words.

Summer was a lady who didn’t give up her spotlight easily.

When Josey woke up and saw the feathery frost on her windowpane, she smiled. Finally, it was cold enough to wear long coats and tights. It was cold enough for scarves and shirts worn in layers, like camouflage. It was cold enough for her lucky red cardigan, which she swore had a power of its...

Life is about experience… You can’t hold on to everything

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

Magical realism is a blending of the unusual or supernatural into an otherwise ordinary setting. And, to me, this perfectly describes the South. ‘The Sugar Queen’ involves a lot of magical happenings, but in a very down-home Southern setting. It’s full of things that could almost be true.

Who I am, what I am, is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, a lifetime of stories. And there are still so many more books to read. I’m a work in progress.

To Fred, those years seemed to pass like quickly skimming a book and then finding the ending wasn’t what he expected. He wished he’d paid more attention to the story.

Sometimes it’s difficult to tell what side of the moral compass we are all on. There are so many things to factor in.

All my life I’ve chased dreams of what could be. For the first time in my life, I’ve actually caught one.

The next morning dawned bright and sweet, like ribbon candy.

I needed to stop being what everyone thought I was.