I always knew I was an excellent liar; I just didn't know that I had it in me to fool myself.

There is warmth shooting through my broken body where there should be pain, and I put my arms around the back of his neck and I hold on to him. I hold on because you never know in this place when something good will be taken away.

I want to make the world into something better so that he can be okay.

She would do anything, anything to belong to his son after a lifetime of belonging to no one at all.

Her mind is a bird that's trapped inside her skull, flapping and thrashing, never breaking free.

Words like 'unputdownable' and 'irresistible' are simply not enough for Cat Winters's In the Shadow of Blackbirds. Days after finishing this story, it remains the first thought I have in the morning, and the thing that haunts me until I sleep.

Rhine. The river that, somewhere out there, has broken free.