Maybe hope isn't the most dangerous thing a person can have. Maybe love is.

She's been conned, ruined, left for dead, and she's not going to forgive any of it. She will soldier on, if only out of spite.

I figured it out eventually," she says. She's sitting on the edge of the gurney again; her features slowly materialize as my vision clears. "It's momentum." "What?" I whisper. The feeling returning to my lips, spreading out to my fingertips and toes. "Momentum," she repeats. "You can't just stand there if you want something to fly. You have to run.

A party in the orange grove. The pain on Linden's face is immediate. I am unwavering. He has cost me more pain than I will ever be able to repay.

Give me time" "For you, always.

Maybe hope isn't the most dangerous thing a person can have. Maybe love is.

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.