Genevieve

“To sow knowing that you will not reap is an old kind of love, and love has always been the best key for unlocking the future.”
― Mark Lawrence, Holy Sister

“She drifted back to the gallery and looked down on the Great Hall. The grey and black flags danced before her eyes. Dear God, she couldn’t do it. They might as well ask her to go to Oxford and sit an exam. She could not be an ordinary mother to an ordinary baby. All those toys, the memorabilia of childhood. Perhaps it was different if you grew up happy, with memories of your father dandling you on his knee and your mother kissing your tears away. But for Elsie there was nothing but fear. Fear for the baby. Fear of the baby. Jolyon had turned out all right, she reminded herself. But it was easier with Jolyon being a boy. What if Rupert’s baby was born a girl? She could not love a daughter that looked like her. She could not bear to glance upon a mirror of her past without being sick.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“Scarlet often wondered about how it might feel to be loved for no special reason at all. Without trying to twist yourself into agreeable knots, without having to give what you might not want to give, safe in the knowledge that you were loved for just being your simple self.”
― Menna van Praag, The Sisters Grimm

“Imprisonment was never the real punishment: it was the people you were stuck with. Lunatics were the worst; jabbering, yammering, moaning.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions