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“Things'll get worse before they get better.”
― Karen M. McManus, One of Us Is Lying

“Do as little harm to others as you can; make any sacrifice for your true friends; be responsible for yourself and ask nothing of others; and grab all the fun you can. Don't give much thought to yesterday, don't worry about tomorrow, live in the moment, and trust that your existence has meaning even when the world seems to be all blind chance and chaos. When life lands a hammer blow in your face, do your best to respond to the hammer as if it had been a cream pie.”
― Dean Koontz

“But this Scroll too has magical properties. From the moment I first saw it, the paper warmed to my touch. I know it came alive as I held it. Did you know there’s a serpent on the back? Some say it’s a dragon. It winked at me. Its lashes are gold.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“She stabbed the earth with her big fork as if she could make Cookie Mac’s blood sprout from it.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Mary’s hands clenched. She’d been through fire, what with a murder, and white supremacists. And what about Caroline, who had gone undercover to rescue the Scroll’s Key Keeper? Where were the College’s thanks for that?”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“I wanted to thank you for saving my life. I am still puzzled about your motives
though. Was it revenge against Zedan for rejecting you?”
“You insult me. It seems that you think of everybody in the same lowly terms you
think of yourself. If there is anybody I should hate for Zedan rejecting me, it should be
you. He was only doing what is expected of him in our society.”
“You mean you don't hate me?�� This was a new revelation to Brown. It worried him.
He was used to hate, he could deal with it, but this he could not understand, he had used
the girl ruthlessly and yet she did not hate him.”
― Max Nowaz, The Arbitrator

“Are you really a reporter?�� asked Brown.
“You already asked me that. Come back to Levita, take the pardon.”�� “I doubt I’ll live long enough to get there,�� said Brown bitterly.
“I hope you survive. You are a fighter. And we have the antidote for your habit on
Levita. I suggest you take a vacation. There’s nothing much that’s going to happen here.”
With that she left, leaving Brown more confused than ever.
He was a father, he had a son. And, the Levitians had a cure for his drug-addled body.”
― Max Nowaz, The Arbitrator

“Where’s everybody? I thought you had started production.”
“They’ve got a day off, but don’t worry you’ll see the machinery is here.”
But Brown was worried. As they entered the canteen, the lights came on
automatically. There was nobody there.
“What’s going��...�� but he never finished the sentence. Brown felt a sharp pain on the
side of his head and everything went black.”
― Max Nowaz, The Arbitrator

“Have you ever met someone for the first time, but in your heart you feel as if you’ve met them before?”
― JoAnne Kenrick, When A Mullo Loves A Woman

“The softness, warmth and weight of her breast filled his palm. “I’ve imagined this for weeks,�� he murmured. Thinking of her out there on the battlefield. In his tent. What more could a woman want? Quite a lot, actually.”
― Yvonne Korshak, Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece

“If there was one thing a former sniper could do well, it was wait. Patiently. Quietly. Without a sound. Barely a movement. Just him, a quiet mind and his breath.”
― J. Rose Black, Losing My Breath

“He desperately tried to think of a story to explain his involvement in her sudden appearance, without mentioning the book of magic in his possession.
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― Max Nowaz, The Three Witches and the Master

“  Mary fought a savage impulse to slam the door on the couple. But they were too interesting to ignore in the circumstances of the murder. She caught sight of Richard spitting out a mouthful of hair.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“He says it was tourists being careless, where I see a fiendishly clever murder attempt.��
“Mr. McCarthy, you’d better explain.��
“Patrick, please. You’ll be tempted to laugh. It was a banana skin.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“George’s utterance of the nest and the trap belonged to a bigger mystery she did not yet understand. One day I will, she promised herself. She would stake her life that those last words from her son would be solved by her. They were steppingstones into�� whatever the wind and the stars and the valiant trees held for her.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“Mary tried to look reassuring. “It’s a house party, he said,�� she directed at the Falconers, “Sir Viktor’s holding a house party for the convenience of the police. It’s like an old-fashioned mystery novel.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“Falconers,�� she continued, sternly. “Pull yourselves together. People are dying. The police don’t have the family history to solve murders forty years apart.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“Listen carefully. I'd crush you like a bug for causing my wife one single moment of pain. Believe it. Fear it. ”
― (Roarke)J.D. Robb

“I’m a soldier,�� Nathan said. ‘We’re all soldiers, now. Soldiers don’t leave people behind.”
― Barry Kirwan, When the children come

“Eve: What is it about asking you Catholic questions that gets you all jumpy?

Roarke: You'd be jumpy, too, if I asked you things that make you feel the hot breath of hell at your back.

Eve: You're not going to hell.

Roarke: Oh, and have you got some inside intel on that?

Eve: You married a cop...you married me. I'm your goddamn salvation.”
― J.D. Robb, Salvation in Death

“Yes, she's bleeding to death upstairs, but I thought I'd avoid telling you right away, because I like to draw the suspense out.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

“Roarke: The bodies of the three men were found floating in the Chattahoochee River.

Eve: I think it'd be embarrassing to be dead in the Hoochie-Coochie River.

Roarke: Chattahoochee

Eve: What's the difference?

Roarke: Quite a bit, I'd think.”
― J.D. Robb, Promises in Death

“She could see the headlines now.

‘Spinster dies alone in her condo. No one discovered her corpse for three days.��

She had been so preoccupied with work, that she’d neglected to do the grocery shopping and was now regretting it.”
― Diane Merrill Wigginton, A Compromising Position

“Everybody has scars, and every scar has a story. Especially the ones you don’t see. Those go deeper. And cause more damage.”
― Lotchie Burton, Gabriel's Fire: Action Adventure, Romantic Suspense, Multicultural interracial

“So, you do speak English. That makes sense now.�� Catherine said, shaking her head.

“Of course, I speak English. I’m from Australia, not Tanzania.”
― Diane Merrill Wigginton, A Compromising Position

“Callan sucked in a breath. As a sniper, he’d been trained by the Marines to know and recognize moments. 

Moments when all the training—his focused mind, muscle memory, weapon knowledge . . . 

When all the preparation—target reconnaissance, angle of attack, position scouting . . . 

When all the setup—hidden amid the terrain, barrel aimed, trajectory known . . . 

When everything came together in one crucial moment—when the sniper squeezed the trigger and took his shot.”
― J. Rose Black, Losing My Breath

“I can’t do more than this. Don’t ask me. If you ask, I’ll try and I’ll fail. You’ll end up hating me. And I’d rather die . . . than have you hate me. Or disappoint you. My own darkness, it still chips away at me.”
― J. Rose Black, Losing My Breath

“Time was not on their side, it was the enemy.”
― C. Toni Graham, Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals

“They say that when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. They never tell you that when you watch someone you once loved dying, hovering between this life and the next, it's twice as painful, because you're reliving two lives that traveled one road together.”
― Becca Fitzpatrick, Black Ice