Sometime years before, I had dragged an old bean bag chair to that place. I watched Zach sink onto it, and then he pulled me down to lean against him. I felt his arms go around me, holding me tight. I was safe. I was warm. I was home.

How sweet is that? I know I'm no boy expert, but I have heard entire lectures on reading body language, and I have to say that assuming that a person will have forgotten your name is way high on my "indicators of humbleness" list (not that I have one, but I totally have a starting point now).

If you don't want to be a victim, don't act like one.

Townsend shrugged. 'With all due respect to the good doctor, I highly suspect he's a moron.

Don't put your characters on a treadmill. They need to go new places, face new challenges and do new things.

Teenage girls read in packs. It's true today, and it was true when I was a teen growing up in a small town in northeast Oklahoma.

She'd absolutely adored the library_an entire building where anyone could take things they didn't own and feel no remorse about it.