But I know all the things you're too sweet to know.

Home?' I say. It's a word that can mean anywhere and nowhere.

You can try to please everyone and risk accomplishing nothing, or go for your dreams and risk pissing a few people off.

Hope, that risky, illustrious thing. It should have gone extinct by now, but we keep it alive.

When I was 11 or 12, I was really bored with everything on my summer reading list. It was all happy, middle-grade kinds of books. I was getting frustrated, because I liked to read. My mother went to the library and got me a copy of 'The Other Side of Midnight' by Sidney Sheldon. It was my first adult book.

Times like this, when she slips her hand into mine and holds on tight, and our husband becomes just a shadow in the doorway.

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