The thing about love is that we can't control whether we get it, but we can control whether we give it. And each feels as good as the other. Your heart doesn't know if it's loving a man, a book, or a puppy. If your heart were that smart, it would be your brain.

Even people who counted their blessings never counted them in the morning. For one thing, there wasn't time.

People project all sorts of emotions onto their cats, and cats like it that way.

I still think I'm writing Nancy Drew with a mortgage.

Alafair Burke's first standalone is a must read! You'll lose yourself in this riveting story of Alice Humphrey, a woman whose nightmare begins when she goes to work at her new gallery job, only to find everything gone—and a murdered man on the floor. You can't guess the plot twists that follow, as Alice's whole word turns upside down and she has to question everyone and everything she thought was real. And the ending is a shocker you'll never see coming.

Nobody was ever replaced in life, no hole completely filled or loss totally healed. You didn't need a medical degree to know that the human body really wasn't stronger in the broken places. Like any bone, the cracks would always show if you looked hard enough.

You can really help support a character if you understand the setting. So for that reason I generally write about Philadelphia.