Clicking on book cover brings you to my review if I wrote one or GoodReads page if I didn't.
Nominees:
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“I asked you once before, and you didn’t answer. I’ll ask you again. Yes or no this time. Are you in love with her?”
“Okay.” He took a long drink of beer. “Yes. I guess it took an ass-kicking to shake it out of me, but yes. I’m in love with her. But—”
“Do you want to fix it?”
“I just said I was in love with her. Why wouldn’t I want to fix it?”
“You want to know how?”
“Goddamn it, Del.” He drank again. “Yes, since you’re so fucking smart. How do I fix it?”
“Crawl.”
I love the hit of that last word, crawl.
2. On a Night of a Thousand Stars by Andrea Yaryura Clark
Silence is Health.
This is a historical fiction story about 1970s Argentina and the dictatorships and regime changes. The author didn't actually originate this quote, it was what the generals and trying to force prevailing atmosphere was propagating at the time. The newspapers were keeping silent about what was truly happening and the fear because of the "Disappeared" had some wanting to buy into this thinking. It's a line that hits hard because of its historical context, its that chilling ominous cold in my bones because I know its intent and outcome.
3. The Lotus Palace by Jeannie Lin
"I had to rescue her."
There's a lot of context and emotion needed to really have this line hit but it's said by Mingyu, a courtesan, about a little girl she rescued from being put into the same life and causes a dangerous chain of events for Mingyu and others around her. It's such a simple stark line but Mariana Trench deep and it destroyed me.
4. A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera
“[..] Women's lives can be a series of daunting choices. Our freedoms or our peace, our safety or our pride. Every day we negotiate these things.”
Oof, yeah, the negotiating is the whittling.
5. Scandal's Daughter by Christine Wells
“Did you tell her, my dear?”
He could have asked the obvious question, but he knew what she meant. “No. I did not tell her I love her. She does not want my love. She is better off without it.” They stood together in the freshening breeze, as storm clouds rolled over the sun.
“How do you know?” she said.
“Pardon?”
“How do you know she is better off? Your love might make all the difference.”
The "Your love might make all the difference." is so lovely here. It's the using your own fear to maybe protect yourself but actually maybe hurting the person you love. Pretty passage.
6. The Jade Temptress by Jeannie Lin
Old or young, homely or beautiful, every woman in the quarter was taught to strive for the same goal. Harmony was what Auntie had called it, but it wasn’t peace. It was silence. Feel whatever you needed to feel, but bury it deep. On the surface, there must be tranquility, gaiety and beauty. Such was the façade of the pleasure quarter. Mingyu had become so adept at being pleasing.
but it wasn't peace. It was silence.
The whole who is silence really benefiting.
7. Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
Like we understood to make wide circles around the drunks on the streets and how calico cats were the luckiest of all, we understood immortality as a thing for men. Men lived forever in their bodies, in their statues, in the words they guarded jealously and the countries they would never let you claim. The immortality of women was a sideways thing, haphazard and contained in footnotes, as muses or silent helpers.
"But things are different here," my mother always said.
She had never set foot in China, would pass all her life on American soil, but she knew how different things could be. She clung to that, and so did we.
but she knew how different things could be. She clung to that, and so did we
💗
(apparently I was in a mood for particular quotes this year, can't imagine what happened in the United States in 2022 to make me feel this way)
8. Without Words by Ellen O'Connell
“You have the most beautiful laugh. It runs up and down my spine, shivers over my skin, and makes me want to grab hold of you like a mad man. You have no idea....”
I love when still waters run deep character composure slips, like a mad man. You have no idea... I feel the teeth gritting of boiling emotion inside him.
9. You Were Made to be Mine by Julie Anne Long
“You have found me, Mr. Hawkes.”
And at first, he seemed unable to speak. He was drinking in the sight of her wonderingly.
“I think I would follow you the ends of the earth.” He said it gently. Almost wryly.
Another I love when, the character is telling the other lead they love them, in the way they can. The gently and wryly, because he's just realizing, understanding, and accepting his love for her. Emotionally stunted characters learning to love and the way it shocks them but the depth they fall into with it is my jam.
10. To Catch a Raven by Beverly Jenkins
Bare-breasted as an autumn-skinned goddess, she slid down his body to her knees, undid the front of his trousers, and exposed him.
The absolute gorgeousness, poetic, sexy, and romance of this line!
11. The Rogue Crown by A.K. Mulford
“Why are the best things the ones we're too afraid to get right?”
Yowza, the truth right here.
12. Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati
She gazes at Agamemnon and says, “I do not forget.”
Maybe another quote that needs context from reading the story but, y'all, the absolute power, savagery, love, anger, hate, and strength behind this quote.
13. A Wicked Game by Kate Bateman
“I’ve dreamed of tasting you for fucking years.”
Her mouth dropped open in surprise, but there was no time to process his unexpected admission. One of his hands slid to her hip while the other slipped beneath her bottom. She fell back onto her elbows, and then his mouth was between her legs, hot and wet, and she could only gasp in astonishment.
for fucking years
I'm telling you all, when this line dropped. Just know, if anyone had interrupted me, I would have murdered them.
Winner:
I'm not lying when I say I had conversations sobbed at my partner who would catch my eyes watering three months after reading this and he'd be like "This isn't about Mingyu again, is it?" and I'd have to spiral about how Mingyu caused all this danger because she couldn't rescue herself or her sister when they were kids so her saving the little girl was about saving all three of them. "I had to rescue her." is a human's buried deep raging pain damn the torpedoes, damn it all line. It's a moment I simultaneously wish we all could get and hope we never have to have.
2021 Winner
What's a quote you read in 2022 that still lingers in your mind?
Next time Favorite Leads.....
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