We writers are resilient souls.

And if I have to die trying, I will get out of here.

...maybe hope isn't such a bad thing. Maybe it's what keeps us together.

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.

I think she's brave. I think that nobody has ever believed what she could be capable of. All her life, nobody was listening.

I wish I had a memory of that first violent shove, the shock of cold air, the sting of oxygen into new lungs. Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.

I had this feeling like the solution to everything would be down there if only I could dig through all those clouds.