Josie, life is not a Mills and Boon book. People fall out of love. People disappoint other people and they find it very hard to forgive.

Someone had to be blamed. Someone had to die. (...) What you can't understand, you destroy.

Phaedra of Alonso’s death was a never-ending pain that gnawed at his insides. It made him a prisoner in his own cottage.

Quintana of Charyn's body was a map of hatred.

My mother, unlike yours, never exchanged sexual favors for a piece of silver," he said, addressing the first insult by banging the boy's head against the trunk of the tree. "And," he said with another resounding thump, "although I'm very familiar with that part of the female body, I take offense at being labeled one.

He nods. "My mum has one just the same and you have no idea how disturbing it is that it's turning me on.

No," I say, looking up at Griggs. "It's actually because my heart belongs to someone else." And if I could bottle the look on his face, I'd keep it by my bedside for the rest of my life.