Elizbeth Mearse

“In a whodunnit, when a detective hears that Sir Somebody Smith has been stabbed thirty-six times on a train or decapitated, they accept it as a quite natural occurrence. They pack their bags and head off to ask questions, collect clues, ultimately to make an arrest. But I wasn't a detective. I was an editor—and, until a week ago, not a single one of my acquaintances had managed to die in an unusual and violent manner. Apart from my own parents and Alan, I hardly knew anyone who had died at all. It's strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery and what is it that attracts us—the crime or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable? I made a mental note to check out Alan's sales figures in San Pedro Sula in Honduras (the murder capital of the world). It might be that they didn't read him at all.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“Usually, she considered Valgu a solid judge of character. She found it easy to concede trust to those he would call friend. But this man, and his brazen claim that he had the ability to restore her wings. Tegija seemed task oriented, and had an heir of self important pride, common traits among attractive men. Tegija was in all things the exact opposite of her private nightmare. The one where her brothers failed to retrieve her, and the House sold her off to some nervous indecisive man child.
No one had even bothered to introduce them.”
― Andrea Luhman, Missing Wings

“We used our minds like weapons clenched tightly in our fists, struggling to return them back to their holsters without injuring ourselves in the process.”
― Alexandra Bracken, In the Afterlight

“She gripped the wheel and squared her shoulders. She didn’t have to do any of this alone. All she had to do was notify the society and put out an All Points Bulletin on Adam and she’d know everything there was to know about the man within 24 hours.”
― Kirsten Fullmer