The Saucy Wenches Book Club

“She’s kind of like a Mary Poppins just before she turns to the dark side of the Force,” Oberon said. He was still behind the counter... “Let go of your anger, Malina! There’s still good in you! The Emperor hasn’t driven it from you fully!”

Kevin Hearne, Hounded (The Iron Druid Chronicles #1)

And that’s why I stay at home and write. I think the idea of me is better than the reality of me.
~ Colleen Hoover, Verity

I gunned it, the rebuilt V-8 under the hood roaring like thunder, then patted Scarlet’s dash. “That’s my sweet girl. My sweet, sweet girl.”
“She ever touch you like that?” Gavin asked Liam with a grin.
“No comment.”
The Hunt by Chloe Neill

You have these lines you won’t cross. But then you cross them. And suddenly you possess the very dangerous information that you can break the rule and the world won’t instantly come to an end. You’ve taken a big, black, bold line and you’ve made it a little bit gray. And now every time you cross it again, it just gets grayer and grayer until one day you look around and you think, There was a line here once, I think.
~ Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones and the Six

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby

“Maybe if I didn’t say anything about what happened, we could get back to the way we were. Ignoring a problem was a perfectly acceptable way to deal with it, as long as both people agree never to bring it up again.”
Kim Harrison,
The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

"Are you two seriously discussing shooting people?" Deuce asked, appalled by the nonchalance.

Ty turned his head to look at his brother with a frown. "Is that bad?" he asked with complete sincerity.

Deuce looked to Zane, who had the same expression on his face. "Yeah," Deuce concluded. "It is, Ty." Zane shrugged helplessly, though he didn't look particularly remorseful either.

Sticks & Stones by Abgail Roux and Madeline Urban

His voice haunts me. His sentences are in my ears, his love, which I look for and can’t find because it is gone, has made the entire world seem empty around me.
~ Lauren Groff, Florida

His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.
~ Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Life is too short to hold in a single tear, a single laugh, a single breath. Biology is how we exist. Emotions are how we live.”

Jewel E. Ann, Scarlet Stone

“I want ye to make me say, ‘Oh, God,’ for ye.”

“That … could be arranged.” I’d cooled down during our walk, but the last five minutes had lit me like a candle, and if I’d wanted to go home and take off my stays before, I was now wondering whether I could wait that long.

“Good,” he said, pulling his hands out of my skirt. “And then I’ll see what I can make you say, mo nighean donn.”

“See if you can make me say, ‘Don’t stop.’”

~ Diana Gabaldon, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood

He gave her a look. "I am going to ignore ― just for a minute ― how much my geek side is loving that apparently there is a goblin king in the world. And that he is ― again apparently ― here in the Tri-Cities. Even knowing that David Bowie is gone, I am giddy about this." He said this all in a very dry, professional tone.

I was really starting to like this guy.

Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs

“If you did not like the show, honey, my name is Nancy Reagan and go fuck yourself.”
~ Chablis
― John Berendt,
Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil

“Ms. Rachel is like the sun.
See her sparkling there with the wind in her hair and fire in her eyes?
You can’t catch the sun.
You can only feel its touch on your face. And if you get too much of it, it burns you.”
Kim Harrison,
For a Few Demons More

It is wrong to ask for more than you give freely.
In this way, we come to resemble what we hate.
― Stephen R. Donaldson,
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever

“If Liam wanted to keep an eye on me,” I said, “he could have stayed in New Orleans.”
Gavin opened his mouth, closed it again. “I can’t really argue with that.”
Moses snorted. “That’s a damn lie. You’d argue with a signpost just for the fun of it.”
“That’s the Irish in me,” Gavin admitted.
“That’s the mule in you,” Moses corrected.

The Hunt by Chloe Neill

I wasn’t looking for a shrewd, sassy heroine badassing her way around the North Carolina swamps. But now that I’ve met the abandoned little girl who grows up all alone to become the storied and singular and oh-so-free-spirited voice of this novel, I’m completely smitten with living vicariously through her.

Where the Crawdads Sing is a beautifully written, exquisitely crafted tribute to an extraordinary life lived without compromise. It’s a naturalist’s love letter to the incomparable richness and allure of wildness and the tidal marshlands. It’s also a bit of an unconventional romance and a riveting murder mystery.

If you’re intrigued, I hope you’ll let me explain why I enjoyed this book so much. No spoilers, of course.
Go as far as you can — way out yonder where the crawdads sing.