Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.

What better way to get to know someone than through her choice and treatment of books?

Without the past to cast its long shadow, might you see the future more clearly?

The tears I gratified him with were fake ones. Ones that set off my green eyes the way diamonds set off emeralds. And it worked. If you dazzled a man with green eyes, he will be so hypnotized that he won’t notice there is someone inside the eyes spying on him. – Vida Winters Page 268

What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney?

To anyone who took the trouble to look, I was plainly visible, but when people are expecting to see nothing, that is usually what they see.

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same.