Are you coming with us?”He looked down at me, his eyes a cool mint green. He seemed to have calmed down since Cadan left. “If you wish.””I would feel better if you were close,” I...

Breath and heat and contact and shirts off and skin on skin and smiles and murmurs and the enormity revealing itself in the tiniest of gestures, the most delicate sensations.

My thoughts are quiet, but not calm. There is a terror on the edge of the silence, a terror fed by my burning flesh and the stench of death.

My life is hard. No one would rob me of that. The clothes I am wearing came out of a knotted up black plastic trash bag from a resale shop downtown. And not the downtown...

No.’ Dorren shifted onto his knees, leaning towards her. ‘This is just the beginning, you’ll see. You are his weakness and you will ruin everything.

I come to oil country with a book about radicals who wish for the end of pipelines. But that’s not what it’s about. It’s the friction point of prosperity and concern, ability and disability, the...

Quit worrying so much about the boards and nails of your life. Focus on the stuff that lasts.” He glanced through the window toward the glowing light of the kitchen where Meg and my mom...

Did you see him eat?

Books in the YA genre, in particular, should use proper grammar because they’re more of an example to young people than adults books are.

I closed my eyes and listened to the occasional chirps of tiny birds hidden in the trees around us, the bubbling of water over rocks down below, cicadas rattling a chorus off in the distance....

Jenna walked in between desks and plonked herself down behind hers, noticing AGAIN that the teacher hadn’t graced the class with his zitty presence. She thought Mr. Kennan needed to get fired, which said a...

I don’t want to kill you, but I must. For the good of the country.

They say you can never step into the same river twice. And maybe that’s how it was for Papi now, memories shifting and re-forming soundlessly beneath him while the rest of us sat on the...

Is there any point asking what you’re going to make me do on Sunday?”Not really.’Okay. ‘Is there any point asking what you’re going to do to me?’He grinned wickedly. ‘Not really.’Fabulous. ‘Does it involve the...

He’s exasperated. “I’m saying I’m in love with you! I’ve been in love with you this whole bleeding year!

Belonging to a place isn’t nearly as necessary as belonging to people you love and who love you and need you.

I’m a little panicky when I realize he’s not here. It’s a lot easier to push down my doubt when he’s with me. When I can see those eyes the color of melted chocolate and...

You know, considering your IQ, you’re really socially retarded sometimes.

There was still a bit of sunshine in the sky, not that it mattered. High treetops and reaching branches entombed us from above in a dark coffin. It was still in the afternoon. We had...

‘Oh, sure, Cassie said. ‘Take me to your faery world. I’ve always wanted to see Tinker Bell.’ Not. She’d had to watch the movie when she was a kid because her parents had thought she...

I look like vanilla pudding so nobody knows that on the inside I am spider soup.

She can go places we cannot, associate with people we cannot, understand things about society types and women that we never can. (Why Mr. Burke hires Violet Strange.)

The same beautiful receptionist greeted Christian who had met him before and she extended the same lush invitation as she had the last time. Victoria’s eyes narrowed and Christian chuckled under his breath at her...

I’m not allowed to be who I really am.

I scoop a clattering cascade of green apple Jelly Bellys into the white paper bag and remember when we were seven. I got stung by a jellyfish. Tim cried because his mother, and mine, wouldn’t...

magic swirls about us like an invisible fog of energy that can be tapped by those gifted enough, using a variety of techniques that center on layered spelling, mumbled incantations, and a burst of concentrated...

That smoke you smell is me frying your brains every time we kiss longer than twenty-three seconds.

I’m looking to make a miracle

Do good. That’s all any of us can do.

When you make such a large withdrawal of happiness, somewhere you’ll have to make an equally large deposit. It all goes back to the universal law of equilibrium.

So is this being in love? I stay with the moment, waiting to find out, the space between us fluctuating with uncertainty. The only thing I am sure of is that each time his lips...

All I know is that the fear I have been battling all night is breaking down the door of my ignorance. As my feet slam down I feel not the hard, wet asphalt but the...

Lesson one: expect to get screwed over for the convenience of others on a regular basis.

I get that. For you, it’s more than following a bunch of rules—no sex, no booze, no swear words, pray every night and twice on Sunday.

Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, so she destroyed them all.

Her gaze travels back to the lie twisted in a tempest of mud and blood. She witnesses the culmination of her recklessness through a curved lens. Absorbed in life uncoiling, unaware of the world beyond...

The fact that at the moment the distinction is being made, a young adult, as opposed to an adult, is the one reading it. In other words, I don’t entirely believe in the distinction. A...

Sometimes life can be unexpected. Sometimes things surprise you and all you can do is roll with the punches or let them beat you to a bloody pulp. -Sage Hannigan, Contingency

They say love is blind…but it isn’t. Love is perfect sight. Love is the ability to see a person, I mean really see him-his strengths, his weaknesses, his flaws, all his past triumphs and mistakes-and...

Sometimes in the winter, when the fog rolled in andsilenced the waves, it felt as if death had its fingers around myneck. Fingers like frostbitten twigs that made me ache inside.

Why don’t you check out those teenagers in the middle row? They’ve been going at it like dogs in heat ever since the previews. They’re probably both werewolves. And even if they aren’t, you should...

Are you still upset I murdered our parents? – Tommy to Danny

Believe in gold and thou shalt never settle for silver.

Mom made me say it over and over, Keep it hidden, keep it safe. If anyone truly knew everything, it would freak them out in a large way. It freaks the shit out of me...

Even now I ask myself, what would have happened if I had gone to the cove with Tansy that Thursday afternoon, instead of going to the beach? If I had stayed away from the boat...

The smoke stung at the corners of Uri’s eyes as he struggled to open them. He could hear the battle sounds all around him and smell the iron from the blood drenched warfare in the...

Be careful. He uses that line on all the girls.

No sky Leila had seen before could compare to the beauty she was seeing above her. It didn’t feel like some accident of nature but rather something that was purposefully unleashed on the world.

I can’t just take it.’‘You can. I’m giving it to you.’ She affirms, glimpsing quickly up at me and then down to the floor, moving her foot once and then back again. Still her hand...

You will do as you are told the second you are told to do it. Is that clear?”I’m not six mother, I think I can grasp standard sentences.’ Whether I chose to pay attention to...