Status Updates From The Dragon's Tooth (Ashtown...

“And a happy New Year to you all.”

I’d forgotten that the end of this first book takes place at New Year’s. Fitting for my first read of this new year!

He opened his eyes, staring straight ahead. The future was invisibly dark, but to Rupert Greeves, it smelled like war.

“You’re going to hang in there,” she said. “That’s what you’re going to do. You’re a Smith. I’m a Boone. We don’t roll over.”

Diana is the best.

The green lawns, the sprawling gray lake, the blue sky walled with rowdy black clouds in the distance—the world around them was beautiful and alive. And they were somehow still alive in it.

They could never go back to who they’d been before.
He wasn’t leaving Ashtown, not even if it meant studying something.

I’m reminded once again how very young the Smiths are. And how believable all the character interactions and reactions and dynamics are.

I always forget how funny this book is

What he felt was layer upon layer of ancient. The boy’s faint green irises looked like they had been beaten and polished more than the smoothest river rock, like they could see by nothing more than starlight—and they no longer cared to see at all.

NOLAN.

Rereading this feels like coming home

“Today, you two have become a brother and sister to me. Your brother by blood is now like my own, and I will do all that I can for him. I wish I could make you promises, but I cannot. Not when it comes to Maxi and Phoenix. For now, I will see what can be seen and hear what can be heard.”

Rupert Greeves. The legend. Honorable. Keenly aware of Justice. Loyal to all ends.

“My hat! My hat has fallen! In the grass! My hat is in the grass!”

Dennis is pompously adorable.

He dropped the stub of his cigarette onto Cyrus’s carpet. “Tonight,” he said, grinding the butt out with his bare foot, “I stop running. Someone else is gonna start.”

N.D. Wilson has a way of giving his characters the most honest, convicting, and sometimes chilling statements. (Horace has also entered the scene by now. Love that little lawyer.)

North of Mexico, south of Canada, and not too far west of the freshwater sea called Lake Michigan, in a place where cows polka-dot hills and men are serious about cheese, there is a lady on a pole. The Lady is an archer, pale and posing twenty feet in the air above a potholed parking lot.

So begins my third time adventuring with the Smiths. I’m ready (and do promise not to smoke in the library).

And we’re back!!

I’ve missed this world so much

Amazing!!!