But sometimes shame is a more powerful engine than rage. Like rage, it burns hot; and like rage it tends to consume its own furnace.

UNMARKED is both gorgeous and hideous. A frightening and disturbing tale spun with great beauty. Absolutely riveting.

His specialty was interrogation. Imagine it, gentlemen. Being strapped to a table so that you are entirely at the mercy of a monster such as this. A person who delights in your pain. A person to whom your screams are more delicious than a lover's whisper. A creature who knows how to keep you alive while he skillfully and meticulously deconstructs those things that define you as human?

Walls, towns, rules, and day-to-day life doesn't make us civilized ... That's organization and ritual. Civilization lives in our hearts and heads or it doesn't exist at all.

No matter what choice you make, it doesn't define you. Not forever. People can make bad choices and change their minds and hearts and do good things later; just as people can make good choices and then turn around and walk a bad path. No choice we make lasts our whole life. If there's ever a choice you've made that you no longer agree with, you can make another choice.

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

Things said and done innocently should never be used as weapons.