In many ways, a degree in the history of ideas is the ideal training for an aspiring writer.

The Hawley Book of the Dead had me completely spellbound from beginning to end. A storytelling virtuosa, Chrysler Szarlan has woven a wondrous, scintillating web of suspense, love, history, and magic that will keep you eagerly turning the pages late into the night. Even readers not normally drawn to the supernatural will be swept away by this book; it has everything a great adventure should have-and so much more.

...it is fifty percent what they see, and fifty percent what they think they see.

Great love, you believe, carries the seeds of great sorrow. Well, perhaps you are right. Perhaps the wise spurn one to remain safe from the other, but I should rather choose to have my eyes burnt in their sockets than to have been born without.

I absolutely believe the past had its share of warrior women who fought like men. Whether some of these were the actual Amazons from Greek myth is another matter.

Don't underestimate the power of events that happened a long time ago. That is the tragic flaw of modern man.

I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, “at nine o’clock. Don’t open your door to anyone else.” “Not even my balcony door?” “Especially not your balcony door.