Before I write the first page of a novel, I spend a long time creating detailed backgrounds for my characters. I imagine the experiences that have formed them, what makes them happy, angry, fearful, and what they yearn for.

I closed my eyes, thinking, Let me love you, Hardy, just let me.

Nature had squandered an unreasonable quantity of male beauty on this undeserving creature.

And I wonder how Gage knew this is what my soul has craved. He turns me to face him, his eyes searching. It occurs to me that no one in my life has ever concerned himself so thoroughly with my happiness.

This is how we court girls in America. We grab them and kiss them. And if they don't like it, we do it again, harder and longer, until they surrender. It saves us hours of witty repartee.

One of the women at the clinic had remarked dryly that Harrow's personal magnetism not only affected men, women and children but also extended to armoires, assorted chairs and the nearby goldfish in a bowl.

You have to rely on whatever sparks you have inside.