If I wasn't dead already, I'd said I was having a heart attack.

Silk didn't care if it slid over scars or smooth, untouched skin. I'd earned my right to be paranoid.

Put any woman in an area run mostly by men and rumors will fly. Unless you make it very clear that you are off limits, there is also a certain competitiveness that sets in. Some men are either trying to run you out of town or get into your pants. They don't seem to know any other way to deal with a woman. If you're not a sexual object, you're a threat.

By 17, I was submitting to publications and collecting my first rejection slips.

I am a very linear thinker, so I write beginning to end. I write hundreds of pages per book that never make it into print

Zerbrowski said, "I only ever understood one woman, and she was kind enough to marry me so I didn't have to decipher anyone else.

Pity is an emotion that can get you killed. The only thing more dangerous is blind hate, and maybe love.