Crystal Denny

“All this time, she had thought of him as her persecutor and herself as the maligned victim of his pride, intimidated into submission because she refused to hurt him. But Ramin had been living in a different story, with himself as the hero, protecting his family from a demon in their midst that only he could recognize.”
― Melissa Bashardoust, Girl, Serpent, Thorn

“She had read enough stories to know that the princess and the monster were never the same. She had been alone long enough to know which one she was.”
― Melissa Bashardoust, Girl, Serpent, Thorn

“Stories always begin the same way: There was and there was not. There is possibility in those words, the chance for hope or despair.”
― Melissa Bashardoust, Girl, Serpent, Thorn

“She was herself and not herself--she didn't know what she was, except that she was free.”
― Melissa Bashardoust, Girl, Serpent, Thorn