Kathleen Tessaro

And she valued those who tried, especially those whose struggles were public and obvious.

He didn’t know what it was like to live between memory and regret with nothing to numb it.

Now that she was married, her days had a weary open-endedness about them; she floated like a balloon from one social obligation to another.

‘The harp? What’s useful about a harp?’

Mallory thought a moment. ‘It’s soothing. Isn’t it? And you get to stroke something between your legs in public!’

the success of the entire venture depended upon the delicate relationship between anticipation and fulfilment; too long a wait between one and the other resulted only in indifference and boredom.

Grace had imagined something more heated; for sides to be taken, honour defended. The polite civility of Mallory’s interchange felt like a slap in the face.

the vivid Technicolor version of everyone else’s black-and-white lives.

It struck her as strange that such violent affections could be reduced to utter indifference.

London was a Turner watercolour this morning; rendered in dreamy, shifting blues and dusky greens, wet, melting, only ever half finished.

in his experience, the most effective way to get what he wanted was to simply wait it out.