Megan Hex

“Lucy wondered where she might be at that exact moment if she hadn’t spent so much time trying to be the right version of herself for those around her.”
― Jeremy Robert Johnson, The Loop

“If she asked Father Josiah, he would tell her to ask for forgiveness for Abu Zaidoun—she never would. If she asked God or Saint George the Martyr or the ghost of her son, they would tell her she didn’t need to ask forgiveness for Abu Zaidoun. She was fully entitled to seek revenge because it would strengthen her faith and give her ailing spirit the energy it needed to keep on living.”
― Ahmed Saadawi, Frankenstein in Baghdad

“We put our feet on the hard ground, take in the night air and look around as if this whole place has sprung up for us and us alone. Not just the house, but the ancient trees, the watching insects, the stars and even the moon. But they have all lived without us for lifetimes that make our own look like the blink of the eye. The house, with its strict walls and severe lines, is shamefully out of place, something modern dropped down somewhere as soft as feathers, as twisty and spreading as willow roots. How do the trees and the insects and the stars and the moon like it, I wonder? How do they like to have to share their secret lives with us now?”
― Hester Fox, The Witch of Willow Hall: A Chilling Gothic Mystery of Haunted Houses and Ancient Magic

“This fits with the broad cultural script that insists that women are interested in stories of violence because of their own history of violation—except that the women in the survey clarified that they weren’t just talking about harm that had been done to them personally, but societal trauma, too. A lot of them mentioned 9/11. Pain doesn’t have to be personal to be a motivating force.”
― Rachel Monroe, Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession