A HUMAN ELEMENT is an elegant and haunting first novel. Unrelenting, devious but full of heart. Highly recommended.

When Chong made to sit down next to her, Lilah drew her knife and stabbed the point into the earth between them. "I can see that you need some quiet time," he said and scuttled quickly away.

The truth is the truth. What changes is what we know about it and what we're willing to believe.

This one looks good,” said Chong over breakfast the next morning. Benny read out loud from the paper. “‘Pit Thrower.’ What’s that?” “I don’t know,” Chong said with a mouth full of toast. “I think it has something to do with barbecuing.” It didn’t.

Courage is tricky, oily. Easy to drop, easy to misplace." "I thought that if you had courage you always had it.". . . "Lilah, nothing is always there. Not courage, not joy, not hate or hope or anything else. We find courage, lose it, sometimes misplace it for years, and sometimes live in its grace for a while.

She wept for the hurt that he owned, a hurt she could never hope to remove.

Yo! Deadheads," he yelled, waving his sword to taunt them. "Nice try, but you're messing with Benny-freaking-Imura, zombie killer. Booyah!