We manage the darkness as we did in the arena, wrapped in each other's arms guarding against dangers that can descend at any moment. Nothing else happens, but our arrangement quickly becomes a subject of gossip on the train.
Cackle, Rachel Harrison
I wonder how much of a woman's life is spent this way. Enduring. Waiting for enjoyment or, fuck it, death.
Bronze Drum, Phong Nguyen
It was unlike even the most powerful memento mori, when the certainty of death comes upon us like a cloud obscuring the sun. Life became weighted with numinous meaning, and that meaning, to last the rest of her days, was revenge.
Advika and the Hollywood Wives, Kirthana Ramisetti
"When nothing else in the world is predictable, you can anticipate when each story beat will happen. If you know what kind of movie you're watching, like a rom-com, you can almost time it to the minute. I like that. Nothing else in the world feels more comfortable to me than knowing the rhythms of a movie."
Heroine Worship, Sarah Kuhn
I should have grabbed something with less potential baggage attached, but I didn't actually own any other rings. Rings got in the way of punching things.
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride, Roshani Chokshi
Oaths are brittle things, not unlike an egg. Though they go by different names depending on the myth--troths and geis, vows and tynged--there is one thing they all share: they must be broken for there to be a story. Only a shattered promise yields a rich, glittering yolk of a tale.
The Shamshine Blind, Paz Bardo
Meekins looked like a toffee that had fallen under the driver's seat, staring into the abyss of a dusty, lonely eternity.
Western Lane, Chetna Maroo
This is how you choose which way to go. Though your mind is following several paths at once, it's not a splitting but an expansion forwards and backwards in time, and it happens so quickly that it feels like instinct. Sometimes, you don't even know what you are thinking.
52 Shabbats: Friday Night Dinners Inspired by the Global Jewish Kitchen, Faith Kramer
The fried fritters are a great option for Hanukkah and are also served at Rosh Hashanah because the Hebrew word for leeks sounds like the word for foiling your enemies, a common wish for the New Year.
Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals, Melissa Clark
Hummus-stuffed mushrooms! I should have thought of that!
The House of Hades, Rick Riordan
"He handed me my past like...like a spear. But I do not know if I should take it. Is it still mine, if I do not want it?"
Couplets: A Love Story, Maggie Millner
It took months to really reach her through the cloud
of myth my adoration made.
Valour and Vanity, Mary Robinette Kowal
With care, she said, "Allow me to suggest that attempting to discover which of us is more at fault will not help us with our present situation."
Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross
The paper unfolded like wings in her hands.
His words met her like a blade. She bowed over them.
Velvet Was the Night, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
They were both angry at the world, that was why this was happening. It was a kiss of scorpions, both heavy with poison. Both weary too.
Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
"Fuck you," Staxxx said, and Thurwar thought, This woman is perfect. And all the joy evaporated in her chest.
Yes No Maybe So, Becky Albertalli & Aisha Saeed
The second Maya looks away, Mom shoots me a wink.
And there you have it: my new crowning achievement.
I'm pretty sure my mom is my wingwoman now.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride
Fatty saw it then. Saw what the men saw. Nate Love, beaming in from another world, his eyes calm and intense, brimming with white-hot rage. Fatty felt as if he were looking at a volcano covered by a clear lake.
The Lost Journals of Sacajewea, Debra Magpie Earling
I smile and look at him with blind eyes when he calls me Janey. I wish White Man and |He is woman| had not taught me to understand English.
Boys Weekend, Mattie Lubchansky
Dead in the Family, Charlaine Harris
"I thought Bruno was such a great fighter. How come you didn't take him on?"
"I gave you the knife," Pam said, giving a good imitation of surprise. "He didn't have a knife."
A Million Junes, Emily Henry
He smiles, and I anticipate then physically feel the cusp of his gritty laugh rise then slip back down his throat, and a tiny and hopefully nonessential piece of my heart flakes off.
Darling Girl, Liz Michalski
The rich smells of earth and cut grass fill the air, and beneath it all is the sharp scent of the sea. What time does it get dark in England in the spring? She's been away for so long she's forgotten. She's let herself forget so much.
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty
Then Dalila joined my crew. Or rather she blackmailed my crew into spiriting her out of Basrah by stowing away in the cargo hold, poisoning my navigator, and withholding the antidote until we had cleared the Persian Gulf. It was a complicated recruitment process.
Ana Maria and The Fox, Liana de la Rosa
Tilting her head back, she welcomed the sunbeams that caressed her cheeks...but they lacked the warmth she craved. Ana Maria feared she'd never be warm again.
Warrior Girl Unearthed, Angeline Boulley
Pauline says boys are scared of me. Good, I say. Weeds out the weak. Who wants that?
And...
"My tribe teaches us to think seven generations ahead when we make decisions. Netamop would have thought of me. I am her seventh generation, and she was someone else's seventh generation. Our Anishnaabe teachings are not abstract concepts or folklore. My ancestors had names, and they lived through good times and bad times. They dreamed of me. And I dream of them. Aho."
Ink Blood Sister Scribe, Emma Törzs
For a while Esther and Joanna sat there together on the bed, both knowing they would soon need to break the stillness, stand, and move onward, but not quite yet. For just this moment, the world--like the watch, the quarters, the novel--could wait.
Shark Heart: A Love Story, Emily Habeck
Through the music's swells, they swayed, and they knew, and they held each other, and they knew, and they melted, and they knew, and they knew, and they knew: Everything would be different and difficult soon.
Monstrilio, Gerardo Sámano Córdova
I often didn't understand my mother's schemes, but despite never having said so, I believed she thought of Lena as the one person who deserved me. The one person, perhaps, who I wouldn't ever swallow whole.
Vampires of El Norte, Isabel Cañas
She didn't want the flirtation that won him favors among strangers. No winks or sharp smiles would suffice. She swore it to herself there and then: his whole soul was her price.
Starling House, Alix E Harrow
"Please stop bleeding on my house."
I suck resentfully at my lip. "Where did you come from?"
"Walking the walls."
I squint around him at the winter woods, shadowed and empty except for the white bones of the sycamores, and remind myself that this boy and his spooky shit are not my problem.
Immortal Longings, Chloe Gong
What are memories if not stories told repeatedly to oneself? Her whole body is the very narrative of her existence.
The Gentleman's Gambit, Evie Dunmore
She was running her gloved thumb over the still fresh edge of the broken tile in her hand, carefully as if stroking it better. His head went strangely empty, seeing this. His next coherent thought was that he had forgiven her for snooping through his belongings and for slandering his perfectly sized weapons.
Family Lore, Elizabeth Acevedo
Flor was not a grasping child; in fact, she largely let things fall through her fingers: dishes, ribbons, aspirations to be anyone's favorite.
And...
(It amazes me how few questions I know to ask, or whom to ask them of, until it's already too late for the answers to be useful. How do lineages of women from colonized places, where emphasis is put on silent enduring, learn when and where to confide in their own family if forbearance is the only attitude elevated and modeled?)
The Bee Sting, Paul Murray
Maybe they're afraid that if they show they care about it someone will take it away, you blurt. Maybe this is a country where for centuries if you cared about anything someone would come and take it away.
The Fragile Threads of Power, VE Schwab
"So one thief made it off the ship. And the other two...?"
"Didn't," said Maris simply.
Paper Names, Susie Luo
The pain that overwhelmed me wasn't sharp. It wasn't loud. It was a hollow pain that burned, ached, writhed, as if someone had carved out a piece of my body. Some piece I couldn't live without. Ni shi wo de xin gan, I remembered my father saying to me once. You are my heart and liver. Now I knew what that meant.
The Resort, Sara Ochs
It's her I'm thinking of when the beauty of the water fades to black.
The Mayor of Maxwell Street, Avery Cunningham
Jay matched her smile, and their charm dashed against each other like light bouncing between mirrors.
The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young
From the moment I'd seen that envelope from Gran, I'd been pulling at a thread that seemed to have no end. Like the toss of a stone into a well, when you're waiting, breath held, to hear it hit the dark water below. But that silence just kept going.
The Kingdom of Sweets, Erika Johansen
The thunder faded, and in its wake the crowd around us sighed, that slow sigh I remembered as signifying neither agreement nor disagreement, only the way things were now, the pass that had been reached, and at that moment I heard a voice in my ear, as close as though he stood right behind me...no longer scarred, not here, but still drowned in the bitterness of this place, so bone-deep that it even showed up in his inventions, toys that betrayed his history as surely as they betrayed his genius, so that he was unable to make even a gingerbread man without giving it the ability to weep.
Happiness Falls, Angie Kim
It occurred to me at some point: if Dad isn't found, if he doesn't come home, or maybe even if he does, this will be what happens to us from now on. For the rest of our lives, every time one of us goes somewhere and doesn't return on time, doesn't let the others know where we are, we will remember this time, what can happen. And we will fall apart.
A Winter in New York, Josie Silver
He laughs, that hideous, forced jovial laugh that makes me shudder, and Bobby shakes his head, muttering "Oh I don't fucking think so" as he hurls his fur hat on the floor and launches himself bodily at Adam.
Again and Again, Jonathan Evison
I am not a psychological curiosity. I have no reason to lie to these people. Is it my fault if they lack imagination, if they cannot think beyond the formal constraints of their fledgling science, if they cannot conceive that the world is full of alternative explanations to their diagnosis?
What the River Knows, Isabel Ibañez
My mouth tasted as if I'd eaten a bouquet of flowers. A shadowy presence loomed in my mind, one woman who stood under a divided sky, half covered with a million glimmering stars and a milky orb casting her skin in a silver glow, the other half inflamed with a blistering heat from the sun. She wore pearls and smelled like roses; on her feet were gilded sandals adorned with jewels.
Late Bloomers, Deepa Varadarajan
I had been a good mother--a loving mother. Though, having your depressed, unmarried, adult daughter, show up midweek and drink beers on your couch at one in the morning was not exactly a marker of successful mothering.
Ties That Tether, Jane Igharo
"If you want to be feminist, fine. But please be a married feminist with at least three children."
The Unhoneymooners, Christina Lauren
I know there's an obvious right choice here, but I do not make it.
Thistlefoot, GennaRose Nethercott
"Every night, we'll stand up on that stage and absorb people's time, attention, alertness. It isn't balanced, to draw that kind of energy. The stage, it has a way of evening things out. Every once in a while, it will demand debasement. A humliation, to neutralize the scales. Consider it a tax. Tonight, we got lucky. But we won't always, and we shouldn't always. Don't question it or you'll curse us."
And...
She dreams of her daughters taking lovers to the forest and leaving them there. She dreams of her daughters reaching fearlessly down a wolverine's throat to cut out its liver for supper. She dreams of the day her daughters will bury her. She dreams of them singing songs so sad that Denikin's soldiers will weep and wedge their rifle barrels beneath their own chins, kneeling in the tall grasses. So many beautiful, terrible, wonderful things her daughters will do.
The Young Widow, Cassandra Chan
"I should imagine it takes a good deal to work oneself up to a murder. Having done so, I don't think it would be so easy to put off for another day, as if it were a lunch date or something."
Things You Save in a Fire, Katherine Center
My upsides were, apparently, competence and skill, while pro-rookie arguments seemed to stress that he was "a good guy."
Small Angels, Lauren Owen
This was a pleasant place, but outside it would soon be growing dark. Her happiness felt like a very small island. Through the open door she saw that the sky had changed. A chill was creeping in like a touch of cruelty.
We Have Always Been Here, Lena Nguyen
It couldn't be healthy, thinking always in those terms: advantages, leverages, trump cards. Getting even. But she couldn't help it. She had to guard herself. As much as she wanted to rely on him, on his warm solidity, she still felt that puckering of strange and breathless danger whenever she was with him.
Dayswork, Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel
We're well past the point in our marriage when we might fight about the Tolstoys' division of labor.
Hester, Laurie Lico Albanese
Here in Salem, my colors help me see what I might otherwise miss: the delight of yellow and red flowers beside a patch of lavender, the power of a leopard marching across a gray silk dress. The heart-healing hawthorn flower stitched upon a white handkerchief with a tiny red A, for Abington. The intrigue of Nat Hathorne's words lined up like a row of crowns.
The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story, Sam Wasson
Here in the Philippines, on Apocalypse, he had, at last, the money and means to stretch their lives to his imagination's breaking point--and he had been stretching it for so long, and so far from home. The rebirth: she had seen that. The dying was new.
And...
The painter enjoys his paradise alone, and his audience is restricted by access to his product. But for the filmmaker, whose process invites a veritable studio of personnel, the paradise is actual, and his product, reproduced and disseminated to a mass audience worldwide, can spread his sacred experience to more and farther.
The Merciless Ones, Namina Forna
"There is nothing in my life so painful that I would destroy all of who I am to erase it."
This from the woman who spent several centuries as a collection of dismembered body parts chained to the floor of the emperor's dungeon.
Big Swiss, Jen Beagin
One of the pitfalls of same-sex relationships was that you couldn't break down in public restrooms. At least, not in peace. The bitch followed you in there.
Half-Resurrection Blues, Daniel Jose Older
The story waits hungrily at the edge of my tongue. Speaking it into existence would be like taking off a jacket made of chains. My suddenly unburdened soul would float up into the darkening skies.
Undercover Bromance, Lyssa Kay Adams
"You need a hug, yes?"
"Not really--mrph." The Russian pulled him into an awkward, muscle-bound embrace. His face was smooshed against the Russian's shoulder, and it actually felt kind of good, so he stayed there for a moment and closed his eyes. Hugs were underrated.
Three Keys, Kelly Yang
I smiled, remembering what it was like to be a fourth grader, looking up at a sixth grader. They seemed as powerful as the sun, like if you stared at one too long, you might go blind. I couldn't believe I was now a sun.
One Night on the Island, Josie Silver
Everything about this situation is right. I'm home again, and it's Christmas Eve. The tree lights glow in the corner, and on TV something unbelievably sweet unexpectedly morphs into something so vicious it could rip your heart out.
Whalefall, Daniel Kraus
Last night Jay dreamed of his father's bones, buttery in a nest of purple kelp, bejeweled with red sea slugs like holiday lights. The bones were soft in his hands, a gentle touch he never got from Mitt and therefore never gave back. He slid them against his cheek. He kissed them. He woke up tasting marrow. Funny, it tasted like tears.
Dim Sum of All Fears, Vivien Chien
I groaned. "I can't believe they slashed all four tires. Don't you think that's a bit overkill? They could have slashed one and it would have been just fine."
Blackouts, Justin Torres
The hemp of the bedside lampshade warmed the light so that his brown eyes burned a rapturous color, liquor-like. I couldn't get over how they shone, the incongruence, the rest of his face a death mask.
And...
Explaining away the "bad father" and redirecting us toward the "good enough father" is so often one of a mother's covert responsibilities.
Bitter Medicine, Mia Tsai
There is a phrase in French that, when translated into English, becomes "so far, so good." Luc finds that insufficient to describe his current situation, the phrase lacking both the charm and the fatalism of the original. Jusqu'ici tout va bien, he thinks. Until now, everything goes well.
Infamous, Lex Croucher
"Farewell, Mother. If I do not return, assume I have committed murder and taken on a new identity to escape prosecution."
"I assume that whenever you leave the house," said Mrs. Miller.
Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward
Mama has always been a woman who hides a tender heart: a woman who tells me stories in a leaf-rustling whisper, a woman who burns like a sulfur lantern as she leads me through the world's darkness, a woman who gives me a gift when she unsheathes herself in teaching me to fight once a month.
Grump, Liesl Shurtliff
My jaw dropped. All this time I'd been saying "fairest," she wasn't thinking about being the wisest and most just. She thought I meant prettiest! How could the queen have misunderstood my meaning so completely? What did beauty have to do with ruling a kingdom? What did looks have to do with anything?
The Best of All Possible Worlds, Karen Lord
"Where are Nasiha and Tarik?"
A very strange expression came over Dllenahkh's face. It was the look of a man who had seen things he could not unsee. "Dancing," he said shortly.
Untethered Sky, Fonda Lee
The carriage rattled violently under my feet and through my bones. The wind tore through my hair and whistled through my teeth as I opened my mouth and screamed in challenge, in rage and grief, in wild and defiant invincibility. The mouse calling the lion.
Milk Street Noodles, Christopher Kimball
If the noodles end up slightly uneven, not to worry--it adds to their charm.
A Crown So Cursed, LL McKinney
Of all the potential outcomes of revealing your secret life of killing monsters to your parents, the last one Alice expected was her mother to turn their house into a domestic Thunderdome.
One Last Stop, Casey McQuiston
"So," Wes says. He's watching August douse her fries in Cholula with an extremely New England expression on his face. "You've gathered us here today to tell us you're boned up for a ghost."
Occulted, Amy Rose, Ryan Estrada, and Jeongmin Lee
Something Spectacular, Alexis Hall
"It's a sonnet. Do you know how hard a sonnet is?"
Peggy had already been involved in one fight at the Farrows', so she did not say, "Is it as hard as Sir Willoughby's hyacinth?"
The Eternal Ones, Namina Forna
I'm no longer that girl who is seduced by the reassuring chains of familiarity, I remind myself. I am the girl who breaks the chains and doesn't look back.
The Bromance Book Club, Lyssa Kay Adams
"Modern romance novelists use the patriarchal society of old British aristocracy to explore the gender-based limitations placed on women today in both the professional and personal spheres. That shit is feminist as fuck."
"Dead Owls," Mona Susan Power, Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, Shane Hawk & Theodore C Van Alst Jr, eds.
Her lips are as tight as a trap, is what I'm thinking, which doesn't even make sense, but I trust the thought like a warning.
The Glass Scientists, Volume 1, SH Cotugno
Somewhere in the Deep, Tanvi Berwah
For the first time, I notice that she still has quiet tears tracking down her face. She never did stop crying. Perhaps she never even realized she was crying.
Postcolonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz
Her, come--in the green night, a lion.
I sleep her bees with my mouth of smoke,
dip honey with my hands stung sweet
on the darksome hive.
Out of the eater I eat. Meaning,
She is mine, colony.
Little Eve, Catriona Ward
There is a twitch in the side of his mouth. It makes something twist inside me. Perhaps he is right, and I am like the thing in the old story. I do send men to their deaths, after all.
Forty Words for Love, Aisha Saeed
She hated this. How hope raged inside her like an infection, making her palms go clammy, robbing her of sleep. Filling her with want. She'd been right not to tell her mother. If hope hurt this much, she didn't want anyone else to catch it.
Trese, Volume 4: Last Seen After Midnight, Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo
Star Wars Galaxy's Edge: The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook, Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Marc Sumerak
I may be a bit skittish about lettin' an actual astromech in my kitchen these days--thanks to an incident a ways back involvin' a couple of corrupt droids whose only appetite was for murder--but emulsauce will always be welcome.
Our Best Intentions, Vibhuti Jain
Babur stares until his eyes water, but he cannot make sense of this motley crowd and their picniclike gathering. If they cared for Chiara Thompkins, she wouldn't have been homeless, or friendless, as it's reported she was in Facebook posts, during her life. If they cared for Chiara Thompkins, then she could have called one of them when she was in trouble, but then some of them, like the two youths he drove, didn't even know her.
Wildscape, Nancy Lawson
Investigating further, Weiss saw pellets of frass--or caterpillar waste--ricocheting off the box's plastic walls. "Every once in a while I'd see a frass pellet flying through the air," she recalls. "And I thought, 'What the heck?'"
And...
Pink was my grandpa, a boilermaker and a cinnamon bun baker whose tough skin matched the roses my grandma grew, and pink was the polish on our nails when he teased us for having "pearly toes." Pink is the peonies that bloomed in my dad's garden the week after he died, and it's the scar on my mom's fragile arm that reopens when she bumps into things.
Gloryland, Shelton Johnson
English doesn't have a word for living as if everything matters as much as you do.
Squire, Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas
Mickey 7, Edward Ashton
"I mean, this is the first time the creepers have actually killed somebody."
"They killed me," I say. "Twice, actually."
Berto puts one arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. "I know they did, buddy."
The Great Reclamation, Rachel Heng
It was the shell he built around himself that revealed his wounded desire. Where others saw standoffishness, she saw fierce, smothered longing, and it made her tender toward him.
The Lantern's Dance, Laurie R King
I will admit that, when I read the newspaper story of Miss Tinne's demise, I felt a wistful thrill at the idea of being murdered by Tuaregs. However, for a woman with funds, skills, and a willingness to be judged mad, there were options between murderous assault and terminal weariness.
The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz
Instead of thinking about La Ronge, she bent her thoughts to a city full of people whose houses couldn't be burned because they were already floating in fire.
Oaths are brittle things, not unlike an egg. Though they go by different names depending on the myth--troths and geis, vows and tynged--there is one thing they all share: they must be broken for there to be a story. Only a shattered promise yields a rich, glittering yolk of a tale.
The Shamshine Blind, Paz Bardo
Meekins looked like a toffee that had fallen under the driver's seat, staring into the abyss of a dusty, lonely eternity.
Western Lane, Chetna Maroo
This is how you choose which way to go. Though your mind is following several paths at once, it's not a splitting but an expansion forwards and backwards in time, and it happens so quickly that it feels like instinct. Sometimes, you don't even know what you are thinking.
52 Shabbats: Friday Night Dinners Inspired by the Global Jewish Kitchen, Faith Kramer
The fried fritters are a great option for Hanukkah and are also served at Rosh Hashanah because the Hebrew word for leeks sounds like the word for foiling your enemies, a common wish for the New Year.
Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals, Melissa Clark
Hummus-stuffed mushrooms! I should have thought of that!
The House of Hades, Rick Riordan
"He handed me my past like...like a spear. But I do not know if I should take it. Is it still mine, if I do not want it?"
Couplets: A Love Story, Maggie Millner
It took months to really reach her through the cloud
of myth my adoration made.
Valour and Vanity, Mary Robinette Kowal
With care, she said, "Allow me to suggest that attempting to discover which of us is more at fault will not help us with our present situation."
Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross
The paper unfolded like wings in her hands.
His words met her like a blade. She bowed over them.
Velvet Was the Night, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
They were both angry at the world, that was why this was happening. It was a kiss of scorpions, both heavy with poison. Both weary too.
Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
"Fuck you," Staxxx said, and Thurwar thought, This woman is perfect. And all the joy evaporated in her chest.
Yes No Maybe So, Becky Albertalli & Aisha Saeed
The second Maya looks away, Mom shoots me a wink.
And there you have it: my new crowning achievement.
I'm pretty sure my mom is my wingwoman now.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride
Fatty saw it then. Saw what the men saw. Nate Love, beaming in from another world, his eyes calm and intense, brimming with white-hot rage. Fatty felt as if he were looking at a volcano covered by a clear lake.
The Lost Journals of Sacajewea, Debra Magpie Earling
I smile and look at him with blind eyes when he calls me Janey. I wish White Man and |He is woman| had not taught me to understand English.
Boys Weekend, Mattie Lubchansky
Dead in the Family, Charlaine Harris
"I thought Bruno was such a great fighter. How come you didn't take him on?"
"I gave you the knife," Pam said, giving a good imitation of surprise. "He didn't have a knife."
A Million Junes, Emily Henry
He smiles, and I anticipate then physically feel the cusp of his gritty laugh rise then slip back down his throat, and a tiny and hopefully nonessential piece of my heart flakes off.
Darling Girl, Liz Michalski
The rich smells of earth and cut grass fill the air, and beneath it all is the sharp scent of the sea. What time does it get dark in England in the spring? She's been away for so long she's forgotten. She's let herself forget so much.
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty
Then Dalila joined my crew. Or rather she blackmailed my crew into spiriting her out of Basrah by stowing away in the cargo hold, poisoning my navigator, and withholding the antidote until we had cleared the Persian Gulf. It was a complicated recruitment process.
Ana Maria and The Fox, Liana de la Rosa
Tilting her head back, she welcomed the sunbeams that caressed her cheeks...but they lacked the warmth she craved. Ana Maria feared she'd never be warm again.
Warrior Girl Unearthed, Angeline Boulley
Pauline says boys are scared of me. Good, I say. Weeds out the weak. Who wants that?
"My tribe teaches us to think seven generations ahead when we make decisions. Netamop would have thought of me. I am her seventh generation, and she was someone else's seventh generation. Our Anishnaabe teachings are not abstract concepts or folklore. My ancestors had names, and they lived through good times and bad times. They dreamed of me. And I dream of them. Aho."
Ink Blood Sister Scribe, Emma Törzs
For a while Esther and Joanna sat there together on the bed, both knowing they would soon need to break the stillness, stand, and move onward, but not quite yet. For just this moment, the world--like the watch, the quarters, the novel--could wait.
Shark Heart: A Love Story, Emily Habeck
Through the music's swells, they swayed, and they knew, and they held each other, and they knew, and they melted, and they knew, and they knew, and they knew: Everything would be different and difficult soon.
Monstrilio, Gerardo Sámano Córdova
I often didn't understand my mother's schemes, but despite never having said so, I believed she thought of Lena as the one person who deserved me. The one person, perhaps, who I wouldn't ever swallow whole.
Vampires of El Norte, Isabel Cañas
She didn't want the flirtation that won him favors among strangers. No winks or sharp smiles would suffice. She swore it to herself there and then: his whole soul was her price.
Starling House, Alix E Harrow
"Please stop bleeding on my house."
I suck resentfully at my lip. "Where did you come from?"
"Walking the walls."
I squint around him at the winter woods, shadowed and empty except for the white bones of the sycamores, and remind myself that this boy and his spooky shit are not my problem.
Immortal Longings, Chloe Gong
What are memories if not stories told repeatedly to oneself? Her whole body is the very narrative of her existence.
The Gentleman's Gambit, Evie Dunmore
She was running her gloved thumb over the still fresh edge of the broken tile in her hand, carefully as if stroking it better. His head went strangely empty, seeing this. His next coherent thought was that he had forgiven her for snooping through his belongings and for slandering his perfectly sized weapons.
Family Lore, Elizabeth Acevedo
Flor was not a grasping child; in fact, she largely let things fall through her fingers: dishes, ribbons, aspirations to be anyone's favorite.
(It amazes me how few questions I know to ask, or whom to ask them of, until it's already too late for the answers to be useful. How do lineages of women from colonized places, where emphasis is put on silent enduring, learn when and where to confide in their own family if forbearance is the only attitude elevated and modeled?)
The Bee Sting, Paul Murray
Maybe they're afraid that if they show they care about it someone will take it away, you blurt. Maybe this is a country where for centuries if you cared about anything someone would come and take it away.
The Fragile Threads of Power, VE Schwab
"So one thief made it off the ship. And the other two...?"
"Didn't," said Maris simply.
Paper Names, Susie Luo
The pain that overwhelmed me wasn't sharp. It wasn't loud. It was a hollow pain that burned, ached, writhed, as if someone had carved out a piece of my body. Some piece I couldn't live without. Ni shi wo de xin gan, I remembered my father saying to me once. You are my heart and liver. Now I knew what that meant.
The Resort, Sara Ochs
It's her I'm thinking of when the beauty of the water fades to black.
The Mayor of Maxwell Street, Avery Cunningham
Jay matched her smile, and their charm dashed against each other like light bouncing between mirrors.
The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young
From the moment I'd seen that envelope from Gran, I'd been pulling at a thread that seemed to have no end. Like the toss of a stone into a well, when you're waiting, breath held, to hear it hit the dark water below. But that silence just kept going.
The Kingdom of Sweets, Erika Johansen
The thunder faded, and in its wake the crowd around us sighed, that slow sigh I remembered as signifying neither agreement nor disagreement, only the way things were now, the pass that had been reached, and at that moment I heard a voice in my ear, as close as though he stood right behind me...no longer scarred, not here, but still drowned in the bitterness of this place, so bone-deep that it even showed up in his inventions, toys that betrayed his history as surely as they betrayed his genius, so that he was unable to make even a gingerbread man without giving it the ability to weep.
Happiness Falls, Angie Kim
It occurred to me at some point: if Dad isn't found, if he doesn't come home, or maybe even if he does, this will be what happens to us from now on. For the rest of our lives, every time one of us goes somewhere and doesn't return on time, doesn't let the others know where we are, we will remember this time, what can happen. And we will fall apart.
A Winter in New York, Josie Silver
He laughs, that hideous, forced jovial laugh that makes me shudder, and Bobby shakes his head, muttering "Oh I don't fucking think so" as he hurls his fur hat on the floor and launches himself bodily at Adam.
Again and Again, Jonathan Evison
I am not a psychological curiosity. I have no reason to lie to these people. Is it my fault if they lack imagination, if they cannot think beyond the formal constraints of their fledgling science, if they cannot conceive that the world is full of alternative explanations to their diagnosis?
What the River Knows, Isabel Ibañez
My mouth tasted as if I'd eaten a bouquet of flowers. A shadowy presence loomed in my mind, one woman who stood under a divided sky, half covered with a million glimmering stars and a milky orb casting her skin in a silver glow, the other half inflamed with a blistering heat from the sun. She wore pearls and smelled like roses; on her feet were gilded sandals adorned with jewels.
Late Bloomers, Deepa Varadarajan
I had been a good mother--a loving mother. Though, having your depressed, unmarried, adult daughter, show up midweek and drink beers on your couch at one in the morning was not exactly a marker of successful mothering.
Ties That Tether, Jane Igharo
"If you want to be feminist, fine. But please be a married feminist with at least three children."
The Unhoneymooners, Christina Lauren
I know there's an obvious right choice here, but I do not make it.
Thistlefoot, GennaRose Nethercott
"Every night, we'll stand up on that stage and absorb people's time, attention, alertness. It isn't balanced, to draw that kind of energy. The stage, it has a way of evening things out. Every once in a while, it will demand debasement. A humliation, to neutralize the scales. Consider it a tax. Tonight, we got lucky. But we won't always, and we shouldn't always. Don't question it or you'll curse us."
She dreams of her daughters taking lovers to the forest and leaving them there. She dreams of her daughters reaching fearlessly down a wolverine's throat to cut out its liver for supper. She dreams of the day her daughters will bury her. She dreams of them singing songs so sad that Denikin's soldiers will weep and wedge their rifle barrels beneath their own chins, kneeling in the tall grasses. So many beautiful, terrible, wonderful things her daughters will do.
The Young Widow, Cassandra Chan
"I should imagine it takes a good deal to work oneself up to a murder. Having done so, I don't think it would be so easy to put off for another day, as if it were a lunch date or something."
Things You Save in a Fire, Katherine Center
My upsides were, apparently, competence and skill, while pro-rookie arguments seemed to stress that he was "a good guy."
Small Angels, Lauren Owen
This was a pleasant place, but outside it would soon be growing dark. Her happiness felt like a very small island. Through the open door she saw that the sky had changed. A chill was creeping in like a touch of cruelty.
We Have Always Been Here, Lena Nguyen
It couldn't be healthy, thinking always in those terms: advantages, leverages, trump cards. Getting even. But she couldn't help it. She had to guard herself. As much as she wanted to rely on him, on his warm solidity, she still felt that puckering of strange and breathless danger whenever she was with him.
Dayswork, Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel
We're well past the point in our marriage when we might fight about the Tolstoys' division of labor.
Hester, Laurie Lico Albanese
Here in Salem, my colors help me see what I might otherwise miss: the delight of yellow and red flowers beside a patch of lavender, the power of a leopard marching across a gray silk dress. The heart-healing hawthorn flower stitched upon a white handkerchief with a tiny red A, for Abington. The intrigue of Nat Hathorne's words lined up like a row of crowns.
The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story, Sam Wasson
Here in the Philippines, on Apocalypse, he had, at last, the money and means to stretch their lives to his imagination's breaking point--and he had been stretching it for so long, and so far from home. The rebirth: she had seen that. The dying was new.
The painter enjoys his paradise alone, and his audience is restricted by access to his product. But for the filmmaker, whose process invites a veritable studio of personnel, the paradise is actual, and his product, reproduced and disseminated to a mass audience worldwide, can spread his sacred experience to more and farther.
The Merciless Ones, Namina Forna
"There is nothing in my life so painful that I would destroy all of who I am to erase it."
This from the woman who spent several centuries as a collection of dismembered body parts chained to the floor of the emperor's dungeon.
Big Swiss, Jen Beagin
One of the pitfalls of same-sex relationships was that you couldn't break down in public restrooms. At least, not in peace. The bitch followed you in there.
Half-Resurrection Blues, Daniel Jose Older
The story waits hungrily at the edge of my tongue. Speaking it into existence would be like taking off a jacket made of chains. My suddenly unburdened soul would float up into the darkening skies.
Undercover Bromance, Lyssa Kay Adams
"You need a hug, yes?"
"Not really--mrph." The Russian pulled him into an awkward, muscle-bound embrace. His face was smooshed against the Russian's shoulder, and it actually felt kind of good, so he stayed there for a moment and closed his eyes. Hugs were underrated.
Three Keys, Kelly Yang
I smiled, remembering what it was like to be a fourth grader, looking up at a sixth grader. They seemed as powerful as the sun, like if you stared at one too long, you might go blind. I couldn't believe I was now a sun.
One Night on the Island, Josie Silver
Everything about this situation is right. I'm home again, and it's Christmas Eve. The tree lights glow in the corner, and on TV something unbelievably sweet unexpectedly morphs into something so vicious it could rip your heart out.
Whalefall, Daniel Kraus
Last night Jay dreamed of his father's bones, buttery in a nest of purple kelp, bejeweled with red sea slugs like holiday lights. The bones were soft in his hands, a gentle touch he never got from Mitt and therefore never gave back. He slid them against his cheek. He kissed them. He woke up tasting marrow. Funny, it tasted like tears.
Dim Sum of All Fears, Vivien Chien
I groaned. "I can't believe they slashed all four tires. Don't you think that's a bit overkill? They could have slashed one and it would have been just fine."
Blackouts, Justin Torres
The hemp of the bedside lampshade warmed the light so that his brown eyes burned a rapturous color, liquor-like. I couldn't get over how they shone, the incongruence, the rest of his face a death mask.
Explaining away the "bad father" and redirecting us toward the "good enough father" is so often one of a mother's covert responsibilities.
Bitter Medicine, Mia Tsai
There is a phrase in French that, when translated into English, becomes "so far, so good." Luc finds that insufficient to describe his current situation, the phrase lacking both the charm and the fatalism of the original. Jusqu'ici tout va bien, he thinks. Until now, everything goes well.
Infamous, Lex Croucher
"Farewell, Mother. If I do not return, assume I have committed murder and taken on a new identity to escape prosecution."
"I assume that whenever you leave the house," said Mrs. Miller.
Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward
Mama has always been a woman who hides a tender heart: a woman who tells me stories in a leaf-rustling whisper, a woman who burns like a sulfur lantern as she leads me through the world's darkness, a woman who gives me a gift when she unsheathes herself in teaching me to fight once a month.
Grump, Liesl Shurtliff
My jaw dropped. All this time I'd been saying "fairest," she wasn't thinking about being the wisest and most just. She thought I meant prettiest! How could the queen have misunderstood my meaning so completely? What did beauty have to do with ruling a kingdom? What did looks have to do with anything?
The Best of All Possible Worlds, Karen Lord
"Where are Nasiha and Tarik?"
A very strange expression came over Dllenahkh's face. It was the look of a man who had seen things he could not unsee. "Dancing," he said shortly.
Untethered Sky, Fonda Lee
The carriage rattled violently under my feet and through my bones. The wind tore through my hair and whistled through my teeth as I opened my mouth and screamed in challenge, in rage and grief, in wild and defiant invincibility. The mouse calling the lion.
Milk Street Noodles, Christopher Kimball
If the noodles end up slightly uneven, not to worry--it adds to their charm.
A Crown So Cursed, LL McKinney
Of all the potential outcomes of revealing your secret life of killing monsters to your parents, the last one Alice expected was her mother to turn their house into a domestic Thunderdome.
One Last Stop, Casey McQuiston
"So," Wes says. He's watching August douse her fries in Cholula with an extremely New England expression on his face. "You've gathered us here today to tell us you're boned up for a ghost."
Occulted, Amy Rose, Ryan Estrada, and Jeongmin Lee
Something Spectacular, Alexis Hall
"It's a sonnet. Do you know how hard a sonnet is?"
Peggy had already been involved in one fight at the Farrows', so she did not say, "Is it as hard as Sir Willoughby's hyacinth?"
The Eternal Ones, Namina Forna
I'm no longer that girl who is seduced by the reassuring chains of familiarity, I remind myself. I am the girl who breaks the chains and doesn't look back.
The Bromance Book Club, Lyssa Kay Adams
"Modern romance novelists use the patriarchal society of old British aristocracy to explore the gender-based limitations placed on women today in both the professional and personal spheres. That shit is feminist as fuck."
"Dead Owls," Mona Susan Power, Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, Shane Hawk & Theodore C Van Alst Jr, eds.
Her lips are as tight as a trap, is what I'm thinking, which doesn't even make sense, but I trust the thought like a warning.
The Glass Scientists, Volume 1, SH Cotugno
Somewhere in the Deep, Tanvi Berwah
For the first time, I notice that she still has quiet tears tracking down her face. She never did stop crying. Perhaps she never even realized she was crying.
Postcolonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz
Her, come--in the green night, a lion.
I sleep her bees with my mouth of smoke,
dip honey with my hands stung sweet
on the darksome hive.
Out of the eater I eat. Meaning,
She is mine, colony.
Little Eve, Catriona Ward
There is a twitch in the side of his mouth. It makes something twist inside me. Perhaps he is right, and I am like the thing in the old story. I do send men to their deaths, after all.
Forty Words for Love, Aisha Saeed
She hated this. How hope raged inside her like an infection, making her palms go clammy, robbing her of sleep. Filling her with want. She'd been right not to tell her mother. If hope hurt this much, she didn't want anyone else to catch it.
Trese, Volume 4: Last Seen After Midnight, Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo
Star Wars Galaxy's Edge: The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook, Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Marc Sumerak
I may be a bit skittish about lettin' an actual astromech in my kitchen these days--thanks to an incident a ways back involvin' a couple of corrupt droids whose only appetite was for murder--but emulsauce will always be welcome.
Our Best Intentions, Vibhuti Jain
Babur stares until his eyes water, but he cannot make sense of this motley crowd and their picniclike gathering. If they cared for Chiara Thompkins, she wouldn't have been homeless, or friendless, as it's reported she was in Facebook posts, during her life. If they cared for Chiara Thompkins, then she could have called one of them when she was in trouble, but then some of them, like the two youths he drove, didn't even know her.
Wildscape, Nancy Lawson
Investigating further, Weiss saw pellets of frass--or caterpillar waste--ricocheting off the box's plastic walls. "Every once in a while I'd see a frass pellet flying through the air," she recalls. "And I thought, 'What the heck?'"
Pink was my grandpa, a boilermaker and a cinnamon bun baker whose tough skin matched the roses my grandma grew, and pink was the polish on our nails when he teased us for having "pearly toes." Pink is the peonies that bloomed in my dad's garden the week after he died, and it's the scar on my mom's fragile arm that reopens when she bumps into things.
Gloryland, Shelton Johnson
English doesn't have a word for living as if everything matters as much as you do.
Squire, Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas
Mickey 7, Edward Ashton
"I mean, this is the first time the creepers have actually killed somebody."
"They killed me," I say. "Twice, actually."
Berto puts one arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. "I know they did, buddy."
The Great Reclamation, Rachel Heng
It was the shell he built around himself that revealed his wounded desire. Where others saw standoffishness, she saw fierce, smothered longing, and it made her tender toward him.
The Lantern's Dance, Laurie R King
I will admit that, when I read the newspaper story of Miss Tinne's demise, I felt a wistful thrill at the idea of being murdered by Tuaregs. However, for a woman with funds, skills, and a willingness to be judged mad, there were options between murderous assault and terminal weariness.
The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz
Instead of thinking about La Ronge, she bent her thoughts to a city full of people whose houses couldn't be burned because they were already floating in fire.
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