Be your own place of safety, she told herself, straightening. No crossbar in the world could protect her from what lay ahead, and neither could a tiny knife ticked in her boot - though there her tiny knife would most certainly remain - and neither could a man, not even Akiva. She had to be her own strength, complete unto herself.

Being near her was like balancing on a tipping world, trying to keep your footing as the ground wanted to roll you forward, hurl you into a spiral from which there was no recovery, only impact, and it was a longed-for impact, a sweet and beckoning collision.

What does true even mean when it comes to a face? Only souls are true, and when you spill them to the air they melt away.

The main thing I've learned is that we all have to learn to work with - and appreciate - the brain we've been given, and not waste time wishing things were easier.

Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.

She had said she didn't feel fear, but it was a lie; this was her fear: being left alone. Because of one thing she was certain, and it was that she could never love, not like that. Trust a stranger with her flesh? The closeness, the quiet. She couldn't imagine it. Breathing someone else's breath as they breathed yours, touching someone, opening for them? The vulnerability of it made her flush. It would mean submission, letting down her guard, and she wouldn't. Ever. Just the thought made her feel small and weak as a child.

I was going to say the beginning is the good part, when it's all sparks and sparkles, before they are inevitably unmasked as assholes.