Rania Melhem

“What do you know of sacrifice? Need I tell you of York's dead . . . of Sandal Castle? My brother did survive the battle, his first. He was seventeen and he entreated them to spare his life. They cut his throat. Their heads were then impaled on York's Micklegate Bar to please the House of Lancaster, to please a harlot and a madman. She had my father's head crowned with straw and she left a spike between the two. . . . That one, she said, was for York's other son.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“Twilight was laying claim to the cité, and the sky was a deepening shade of lavender, spangled with stars and fleecy clouds the colour of plums.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, Devil's Brood

“We tend to forget at times that it is the little ones, the children, who do suffer the greatest hurt. If we cannot comprehend why certain sorrows are visited upon us, how on earth can they?”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“I inhale hope with every breath I take.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept