"The princess's delight quickly turned to sadness. She missed her family and did not want to get married without them. Arsalan told Amal she was the cleverest person he knew. . . .”
At the end of Herman Melville’s novella, “Bartleby the Scrivener” we learn that Bartleby’s “pallid hopelessness” may have been caused by his stint in the Washington, D.C., Dead Letter Office where
“Each man had seen plenty of death in his lifetime. Tuberculosis, smallpox, and scarlet fever had done their duty as colors of the herd. Childbirth and cancer had taken plenty too.
“The characters in A Forty Year Kiss are realistic, and many of the scenes are quite well-written, but the story itself falls short of feeling true to life.”
“Raybourn’s reliably skillful plot twists and nimble writing, along with dialogue that should have a warning label (about choking with laughter), make this one of the liveliest crime novels
“Engagingly narrated by Miss Maple, Cloud, Othello, Maude, Mopple, and the rest of the flock, Three Bags Full is humorous, mythical, philosophical, endearing, and in a magical way,
