The Roms
Favorite Quote
*Books eligible could be published in any year, they just had to be read by me in 2023. Clicking on book cover brings you to my review or GoodReads page if I didn't write one
Nominees:
1. A More Perfect Union by Tammy Huf
This is what it looks like when a master holds you special.
A gut punch of a line, it's referring to an enslaved woman that the plantation owner repeatedly rapes but some see as having a better life because she's not working in the fields but the house.
2. The Book of True Desires by Betina Krahn
[...]a tailored silk dress with a square neckline that bared enough to make the viewer wish it bared even more.
What could probably be considered a little throwaway line, I loved this because of how it evokes sexiness and playfulness. It's showing that attraction and heat in a very word crafting way.
3. The Secret Lives of Country Gentleman by K.J. Charles
Gareth knew dependency all too well, and he saw it now: the ever-present fear of abandonment, the humiliation of being at another’s whim, the resentment that had to be stifled because to show it could be fatal.
In the midst of a "trade wife" moment on social media and laws in the US clamping down on certain people, just, yeah, this sentence.
4. The Making of a Gentleman by Shana Galen
But this man--this aristocrat, whom she had expected to abhor--drew her like no other. The comte said more with his eyes than most men did with a lifetime of words.
Eye talking! I LIVE for. I'm a sucker for eyes showing instead of telling emotions (Don't forget I'm also a sucker for blatant talk, like that Woman on the Run scene, the duality of humans!) and it coming from a comte that you love to hate, nice.
5. Love Stories by Trent Dalton
Rosie smiles, understandingly, then sums her husband up in three words. 'Seamus is truth,' she says. 'Love is the privilege of being with someone long enough that you're gradually refining the truths that you tell each other. You feel safe enough to keep showing more and more of yourself to each other. To me, that's what love is. It's not the fireworks and the rainbows and the butterflies. We all keep pieces to ourselves. True love is showing up as yourself.'
And now I know what love is:
Love is exposing all the pieces.
I'm in a long term relationship and the truth of this! This is why I do believe it's either you grow together or grow apart and if you're lucky enough to grow together, that peeling of an onion is the best. The "refining the truths" and "feel safe enough", yup, that's the love.
6. An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera
“I don’t need protection from the opinions of morally bankrupt people. Not from the men willing to ravage anything in their path to feed their greed, and not from the women who turn a blind eye to it to protect themselves.” Suddenly everything that had always felt so nebulous for Manuela, about her life, her purpose, seemed to come into perfect clarity. “I was going to be one of those women. My mother has been one for so long she can’t see she’s bartered herself away in the process. But that is not what I want. We don’t have to be pawns in this game anymore, Cora.”
"bartered herself away in the process". Sometimes it feels like it's a no-win situation and Manuela breaking free from bartering herself away was a moment.
Honorable Mention:
“You deserve more than what you’ve been told you can have.”
7. Forged by Blood by Ehigbor Okosun
I don't know why I'm explaining anything to him. Perhaps there's a part of me---a tiny, minuscule part---that wants to see him sorry. Have him apologize. But what would that really change? If he needs to see the beauty and diversity of our magic to consider us worthy of existing, what happens when we are imperfect? Blemished?
Realizing that if acceptance comes on someone else terms, it's only acceptance without true freedom.
Honorable Mention:
Èrù jé ògá àjèji. Ó si leso aláimòkan èdá di ehànà.
Fear is a strange master. It makes monsters from the simplest of men.
8. Between Us by Mhairi McFarlane
Dismal male fantasies really get a pass, don’t they? Let me help you, Niall Thingy: yes, it does matter if you hide your shagging around. Where are “Becca’s” rights not to be shagged on? It’s not about what society asks of him, it’s what he promised her.
It's that last line.
9. The Duke Gets Desperate by Diana Quincy
“Don't be thick blooded.” Auntie made a moue of distaste. “Nobody likes a girl with a big head.”
“What you mean is that nobody likes a girl who knows her worth.”
Dropping that truth bomb.
10. Things to See in Arizona by Mary Vensel White
“[...] As you get older, Tuesday; you'll find that much of life is wasted in the space where we don't say what we're feeling.”
Oh yes, the myriad of reasons why we don't say what we feel and how that can eat away and take away from you.
11. A River of Golden Bones by A.K. Mulford
Wolves clung to tradition and, for some reason, I’d thought those traditions would keep us safe. Yet as soon as I stepped outside of that world, I realized how hollow it all was. It wasn’t for safety. It was for power. And not my power.
I'm a sucker for underling and hidden truths that should get you thinking, that authors incorporate into their stories and Mulford is saying a whole lot here.
12. Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn
My sister and I shared quarters the size of my room on the ship. Back then, I’d complained of suffocation. Now, I choke on the emptiness.
"Now, I choke on the emptiness."
I mean, my god, the grief packed into six little words.
13. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
I offered Denton my hand, because Americans will shake hands with the table if you don’t stop them.
and
Sometimes it’s hard to know if someone is insulting or just an American.
I laughed so hard at the first line and then to be hit with the second, dang! Taking the piss out of us Americans, can't help but salute at these sentiments.
Winner:
I don't know what to say other than this line is still reverberating in me months after I read this. Just, "Now, I choke on the emptiness." It's an aching steal your breath, gut punch and makes you think of anyone you've ever lost and that empty feeling of them being gone. That line goes hard.
2022 Winner
What's a quote you read in 2023 that still lingers in your mind?
Next time Favorite Leads.....
They are all really good--and I say that with only what context you give for most of them.
ReplyDeleteThere were some really great lines this year! I always worry some won't hit as hard without story context, so it's nice to hear the meanings are still coming across :)
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