Giannina > Recent Status Updates

“Welcome to the family, Marigold Demarr.” Solentine smiled at me and met Everard’s gaze. “You are standing too close to my cousin. Remove yourself to the appropriate distance.”

Oh, Sol 😄

“I was sitting on a wall in a magical city, and a hot, deadly swordsman had brought me tea and pastries and was entertaining me with his war stories. Dreams fanfics were made of.”

“Karma was a bitch, she was sharpening her scythe, and there would be a harvest.”

“I graduated with a degree in political science, and before I switched to that major, I studied criminal justice. Both of my majors taught me that monsters in human skin didn’t look like monsters. They looked bland and ordinary.”

“My first lesson in The Truth About True Love: what we yearn for, deep down, is a heart that will embrace us after we make a fool of ourselves.”

I forgot how Mitch Albom’s books always manage to tug on my heartstrings 🥲

“What would I do with a live paladin, for that matter?”
“Well, you’ve had a paladin for a while, and I don’t think you’ve been terribly impressed. But if you keep me around, I will make sure I always have a handkerchief.”

Oh, Caliban and his handkerchiefs 💛

“I have generally found that women are capable of great heroism. At least as great as men. And they frequently make less fuss over it.”

“Have you ever considered giving up killing people and becoming a tailor?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And?”
“I don’t like people unless I’m killing them.”

“Really stupid people die all the time. And if they can manage it, I oughta have no problem.”

“Words sound the same coming from the honest and the deceiving, the informed and the deceived. They matter - never think otherwise - but most of the time, people need to be shown a truth before they will truly believe it.”

“Rule a man, and he will do whatever you can imagine. Befriend him, and he will do more.”

“When it comes to dragons, size most definitely matters. Any dragoness would agree.” 😄

“Why couldn’t he be pretty and dumb? This would be so much easier if he was all package and zero substance. But no, it’s just my luck that the fucker is clever, adept and annoyingly observant.”

Ever is my kind of FMC 😄

“This is a love story, by the way. It may not seem like it, what with all the blood and guts and murder, but nevertheless, that’s what it is. And there’s no greater love story than that of platonic female love. The kind of love that I have with Daphne.”

“What good would it do her to get involved with someone like him? She’d have to feel so much, and she’s not that kind. She couldn’t abide those poor, incoherent women who came to the aunts’ back door, and she could not stand to be one of them now, wild with grief, overcome with what some people call love.”

“Sally considered her little sister greedy and selfish; Gillian thought of Sally as a prig and a prude, but they were still sisters, and now that they were about to be separated, they stood in front of the open window and hugged each other and cried, then vowed they would be apart for only a short while.”

“Because every tyrant of the world, from the sacking of the Library of Alexandria until now, cements their rule by targeting knowledge. They do it with guns or they do it with book bans and board meetings, but that is where it starts.”

“A coalition of angry, self-righteous men happened. Who else is responsible for so much of the world’s violence?”

“People who die with too many books on their To Be Read stack sometimes end up here. The ones who don’t feel they can pass over until they catch up on their reading.”

How comforting would it be for us, book lovers, if such a place existed 😄

So I flew through the first 50% of this book today and I have SO MANY questions. And just as many theories! Which is the best part of reading.

“You’re thinking about this too logically.”
“Too logically? I thought the female crime I was supposed to avoid was thinking about magic emotionally. Too logically, Archmage?”
“God is beyond mere mortal logic. It is not for even the greatest minds to question His will. Remember this. It makes it easier.”

Religion to justify genocide. Of course.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

I don’t know if I want to scream, cry or throw my Kindle at the wall right now.

“Magic is the one area where I can shut myself in a room with my books and my thoughts and come out more powerful than I went in. It doesn’t matter how big, or strong, or pretty you are in magic. It doesn’t matter how much people like you. With my fingers on the keys of a spellograph, I’m the most powerful person in the world. That’s a feeling a woman just isn’t going to get anywhere else.”

So much tragedy in this book! I suspect that I won’t be able to sleep after I finish it, not out of fear this time, but out of sadness…

The books in this series satisfy my (murder) mystery appetite, but always leave me with an eerie feeling as well. Just 10% in and I already feel unsettled 😅

“Why do men do anything? Because they have something to prove. Because they have someone to prove it to. Because they want to. Because they can.”

“Why do men do anything? Because they have something to prove. Because they have someone to prove it to. Because they want to. Because tbh can.”

“It is simplicity itself to fire one’s employer. All it takes is some kindling and a match.”

If only it was truly that simple 😄