All books are in safe hands with me. They're my children, my inky children, and I look after them well. I keep the sunlight away from their pages, I dust and protect them from hungry hookworms and grubby human fingers.

Where did the love come from? What was it made of?

The night breathed through the apartment like a dark animal. The ticking of a clock. The groan of a floorboard as he slipped out of his room. All was drowned by its silence. But Jacob loved the night. He felt it on his skin like a promise. Like a cloak woven from freedom and danger.

The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against her ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages.

Reality is a fragile thing.

Quite suddenly Meggie felt fear rise in her like black brackish water, she felt lost, terribly lost, she felt it in every part of her. She didn't belong here! What had she done?

I live in Hamburg; that's in the north. And I live on the outskirts of town. It looks like countryside.