From the Bookshelf of 2025 Reading Challenge…

Hopper took a drag of his cigarette, brushing his hair from his eyes, and looked up at the sky, squinting at those birds on the telephone wires. More had appeared out of nowhere. Now there were seven— seven tiny black notes on an otherwise empty pie

Hopper took a drag of his cigarette, brushing his hair from his eyes, and looked up at the sky, squinting at those birds on the telephone wires. More had appeared out of nowhere. Now there were seven— seven tiny black notes on an otherwise empty piece of sheet music, the lines and bars sagging, giving up as they stretched between poles and twisted on down the road.

And I saw the brief yet brazen look of male desire flash on his face, unmistakable as an oil tanker blinking a light at another ship.

Whenever the girl brought up Terra Hermosa it was like spraying DDT on the conversation—an instant killer.

It was a clear winter day with all the bounce and bright-eyed resilience of a teenager, sky blue, sun blinding, the two-day-old snow crunching like cake icing under our boots.

Standing along the railing, staring out, I could see the island far ahead. It was revealing itself like a woman stepping out from behind a curtain, unhurried and deliberate ...

... they, along with countless people in the town, were using his property for sadistic ritual. ... He was living amongst country kooks, after all, white-trash crazies, in-bred Deliverance freakazoids.