Stephanie

“She allowed herself a moment of self-pity, while she thought how different her life would have been if her mother had lived. Because her mother would have loved her, wouldn’t she? Unconditionally. She would have taken her into town and bought her the sort of clothes the other girls wore, had tea ready on the table when she got in from school, taken an interest. All the things that Hector had never managed to do. It occurred to her that with a mother like that, she’d have grown into a different woman. Softer, weaker. Not so good at her job.”
― Ann Cleeves, The Darkest Evening

“Then the class moved on,’ Vera said, ‘to the Revenge Tragedies. Webster. The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil. Very gory. Makes today’s violence on telly look restrained.”
― Ann Cleeves, The Glass Room

“she’d never had a best friend, no one with whom she could share her dreams. The nearest she had was Joe Ashworth.”
― Ann Cleeves, Harbour Street

“We’d talked about it. About the jealousy that drove Othello to madness.”
― Ann Cleeves, The Glass Room