A game of Scrabble has serious consequences.

“Go to Goldman’s Greenhouses. Joseph … will start you … at a buck sixty an hour.” His lungs empty of smoke, “Go talk to him. He’s your uncle. He’ll hire you.

A semi-barbaric king devises a semi-barabaric (but entirely fair) method of criminal trial involving two doors, a beautiful lady and a very hungry tiger.

I like the tennis courts 'cause they're green, red, and white, but the truth is—I hate tennis.

Emma nervously entered the classroom and found an empty desk while she felt the burning power of a hundred sets of eyes staring. She expected the teasing and giggles, but she didn’t expect silence.

Mimosa Mitchell was an 85-year-old “pillar of the community” and matriarch of one of the most prominent families in Petunia Springs.

Mrs. McDoogle had a bugle, But she couldn’t play a note.

‘What shall we do with the body?’ The other one rubbed his chin. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, eh?

I feel the laboured contractions of your heart, pounding to maintain my mirrored beat, as you toil to grow me in time

Over the next three years, they became a couple. Not romantically, but as close and valued companions who shared their hopes and ambitions, their fears and regrets, their successes and disappointments.

The thunder in the rolling blanket of clouds marked a season of cleansing, a time of remembrance. It was also a time of death. The Sailor knew that well.

I had known Bill for five years but had never seen him outside the office. “Don’t you find that strange?” Annie asked me one evening.

That wasn’t the third thing I did that made me look suspicious. It was the suitcase.

There’s all these picturesque poems, anecdotes about scattering loved ones’ ashes. Things meant to be profound, symbolic.

As a rule, the Bishop was more in than out. Consequently the size, the airiness, and the aggressive modernity of the room made quite an impression on him. Deacon Sue realised this from the way he quietly looked around and nodded.

It had been a week since I'd last left the house. I'd barely made it back last time.

After such a pleasant stay at the conference in New Mexico, where his talks had gone well, and everyone had been so kind, it was distinctly uninspiring to fly home to a wife whose love for him had long been in doubt.

Zena could hardly believe that she was on a plane, gazing down over the North Island. Everything she knew about New Zealand came from Luke’s photographs and postcards: sparkling lagoons, snow-capped mountains and silver ferns.

When a friend asks Ethan to test out his new navigation app for a journey across the country, Ethan happily obliges. However, as with most new apps, it's not uncommon to run into a few bugs along the way.

I would be staring past the characters at the painted background. Faraway hills and tall summer trees against a wide horizon. What was there?