There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

Outside, the September air was enticingly fragrant, yellow with pollen and rich, lemony sunlight.

Every time someone forgets, someone else disappears,' my brother wrote.

Sometimes movies really are the best medicine.

Unfinished business always comes back to haunt you, and a man who swears he'll love you forever isn't finished with you until he's done.

She knows where she's going, and what she has to do. She could, after all, find her way to Route 95 South blindfolded. She could do it in the dark, in fair weather or foul; she can do it even when it seems she will run out of gas. It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

When I write for teens, I feel I can cut through everything and get to the bare bones. I can get straight into the emotional world of the character.