I don't know why one author writes westerns while another writes detective novels. You don't know why. You go where the intensity is. I feel most comfortable writing about monsters. It's possible that I feel like a monster myself. Or maybe it's because we all have a monster inside of us, a vampire, a ghost, a witch or a werewolf. You do it because it works and it feels really right and authentic.

What is written beneath this heavy handsome book cover will count, so sayeth this cover.

No one is safe from nature's savagery,not even the innocent. Only beauty is consistent. Gabrielle envisions a time when the Savage Garden will overtake civilizations and destroy it.

I love New Orleans physically. I love the trees and the balmy air and the beautiful days. I have a beautiful house here.

We shall live even in this state of living death, we shall love, we shall feel, we shall defy all who would judge and destroy us.

I will write things, he was thinking. I will write something meaningful and wonderful someday. I can do that. And I'll dedicate it to you because you're the first person who ever made me think I could.

For several long moments we remained locked together, and I think I covered her hair with small sacred kisses, her perfume crucifying me with memories.