Her clothes still smoked from the wizard’s assault. But to him, she always smelled of flowers.

I'd rather have a go at life, so there's something to talk about once we're gone.

A fiction writer is never entirely alone. Her characters are constantly whispering in her ear.

She padded toward Han, barefoot, like a faerie startled out of a forest bower, bewitching mix of clan and flatland beauty.

He swept Raisa up into his arms and kissed her like it was his first, last, and only

Ellen could have killed me," Jack said quietly, "but she didn't. She saved my life." "How come?" Fitch demanded. "After all this?" Ellen turned scarlet and stared at the ground. "Maybe none of my opponents ever gave me flowers before," she mumbled.

Tears stung her eyes. She sank her knees next to the sleeping bench and gently raked strands of golden hair from him forehead. "Don't you die. don't you dare. I forbid it." As if Han Alister had ever listened to anything she said.