One of the marks of a truly great mind, I had discovered, is the ability to feign stupidity on demand.

I am often thought of as being remarkably bright, and yet my brains, more often than not, are busily devising new and interesting ways of bringing my enemies to sudden, gagging, writhing, agonizing death.

Except I'm aware that as a writer you can't get away with as much writing for children as you can with adults. Children have much more finely tuned senses of justice, morals, and ethics. They are much more Platonic: children are symmetrical, before we begin to fragment them with our own nonsensical ideas and squelch their natural joy in knowledge.

Compared with my life Cinderella was a spoiled brat.

Although it is pleasant to think about poison at any season, there is something special about Christmas, and I found myself grinning.

I always knew that I wanted to work on my own material - something that would be more long-lasting than short-lived electronic transmissions.

It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest, and I had long ago become accustomed to being called 'Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it.