Others said May was best, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens along Main Street were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips.

I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us

Sometimes the right thing feels all wrong until it is over and done with.

That's the way love sounds, my mother told me. You think it should feel like honey, but instead it cuts like a knife.

Maybe some love was guaranteed. Maybe it fit inside you and around you like skin and bones.

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

I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself