juno

“The severed heads of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, made of papier-mâché-covered balloons, lay neatly in front of them, smiling benignly in wicker log baskets. Sugar-pink cardboard necks,”
― Debbie Young, Best Murder in Show

“Did we have a choice?” Coop said beneath his breath. “You always have a choice in life, boy. You, knowing I can cook your brain with the snap of a finger, chose to escort Summer anyway. You’re either extremely brave or extremely stupid. Perhaps a mixture of both.” His jaw clenched, and Coop had to talk himself down from an ugly retort. A verbal battle wouldn’t solve anything. He shrugged and said, “I love her.” The older man cast him a winsome smile. “Perhaps smarter than I thought.” The wide grin cemented Alastair’s relationship to Summer”
― T.M. Cromer, Summer Magic

“this”
― Paul Austin Ardoin, The Reluctant Coroner

“Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.

This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling; and although there is plenty of space on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a man's life, detail is always welcome.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Laughter in the Dark