Quotes from Jess Lourey

Under normal circumstances, I'd have found his dorky effort to cater to what he imagined I liked to be hilarious, but I was light-years from normal. This new, dark world felt pretend. I had no idea how to behave.

week, listening to the horrible racket of tumbling, grinding stone, and when they came out, they'd morphed from rocks to treasure? That's what Jessica Morrell does for my books. She's the polisher, my manuscripts are the stones, and the grinding sound is me complaining because

though I spotted Bernie Nordman, co-owner of Ace Hardware, make her way into the computer/library/board game back room with a steaming mug in one hand and what appeared to be a cherry Danish in

It's better to live in the present, pumpkin. That's where the good stuff is.

Wanna join The Game, Fresh Meat?

I asked you where you're from," the leader repeated. "Cuz if you were from around here, you'd know these are our woods. No one comes or goes without paying a price. You've heard of Satan, haven't you?

I didn't know what to think, so I thought everything, my brain a blur, thoughts a big, fat green crayon scribbling to black.

No backsies. That was a terrible truth to learn before the age of fifteen, that some mistakes are forever.

Boys don't know how to be uncomfortable in their bodies, I realized, even the ones who don't look great. It's not that they can't be shy, or sad, or scared, just like girls. It's that they haven't been taught their bodies are bad their whole lives, like we are.

Better to feel the pain now, my dad had told me that day I'd fallen off my bike, than suffer the infection later.

I leaped off the couch, cracking the drying wounds on both knees. I swallowed a cry. Was someone lurking in my room?

With Mom, what went up must come down, and it was a mystery what exact combination would make life too much for her.

Trust your instincts, Frankie. Dad had first said that to me when I couldn't decide if the towering plant I was eyeballing was an extremely poisonous giant hogweed or a delicious Indian celery.

Everyone in this town was a weirdo, that was a solid-gold fact, and it didn't matter because I wasn't alone anymore. I had the kitten.

Claude's father was one of those guys who thought if you didn't laugh, it was because you hadn't heard the joke clearly enough.