The Saucy Wenches Book Club

“Help me out here, Mr. Fikry. Tell me you have a background in education or child development or some such.” “Um . . . I was on my way to a PhD in American literature before I quit that to open this bookstore. My specialty was Edgar Allan Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher is a decent primer on what not to do with children.” ~ Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“I want you, Elsie. All the time. I think of you. All. The. Fucking. Time. I’m distracted. I’m shit at work. And my first instinct, the very first time I saw you, was to run away. Because I knew that if we’d start doing this, we would never stop. And that’s exactly how it is. There is no universe in which I’m going to let you go. I want to be with you, on you, every second of every day. I think — I dream of crazy things.” ~ Ali Hazelwood, Love, Theoretically

“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.” ~ David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI

She was a great girl-shaped forest. She was a thing on fire. Her hand was leaves and smoke and snow and flesh all at once. ~ Mona Awad, Bunny

She was always doing that, telling him stories. Prying open cracks for magic to seep in, making the world a place of possibility. ~ Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts

“Dragon relationships are absolutely incomprehensible,” I murmur. “Yeah? You should try a human one sometime. Just as vicious, but less fire.” ~ Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

“That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive — all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.” ~ Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society