I've loved fairytales, folklore and mythology since I was a small child, and I think it was inevitable that they would influence my style and my development of stories.

If she were here I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off her. I would hold her so close she'd beg me to let her breathe. I'd kiss her so hard she'd plead for mercy. I'd unfasten her clothing and lie with her onthat hard bed, and what was between us would be as far above the ordinary congress between man and woman as the stars are above their pale reflections in the lake below.

How could you not know?" His voice was full of wonderment. "You changed me utterly. You were like a...like a bright, wonderful bloom in a garden full of weeds. Like a graceful capital on a page of plain script, a letter decorated with the deepest, finest colors in all Erin. Like a flame, Caitrin. Like a song.

She seemed fragile like a moonflower – destined to bloom for a single lovely night, and then to fade and fall.

After a while, footsteps sounded on the flagstones outside and there was a gentle tap at the door. Of course, one of them would come. So close were we, the seven of us, that no childhood injury went unnoticed, no slight, real or imagined, went unaddressed, no hurt was endured without comfort.

You cannot poison what is between us with your foul words. She is my light in the darkness and Johnny is my pathway ahead.

You don't like it that I am the one you need to keep the wolf from the door; that comes as no surprise. But I am the one you have. At some point we'll both have to risk telling the truth.