My Lady Jane (The Lady Janies, #1)

by Cynthia Hand

He thought he finally understood the Meaning of Life now, the Great Secret, which he’d boiled down to this: Life is short, and then you die.

Lady Frances didn’t clarify whether “too old for it” meant happy or married.

Jane, as we mentioned earlier, loved books. There was nothing she relished more than the weight of a hefty tome in her hands, each beautiful volume of knowledge as rare and wonderful and fascinating as the last. She delighted in the smell of the ink, the rough feel of the paper between her fingers, the rustle of sweet pages, the shapes of the letters before her eyes. And most of all, she loved the way that books could transport her from her otherwise mundane and stifling life and offer the experiences of a hundred other lives. Through books she could see the world.

Her husband-to-be was a philanderer. A smooth operator. A debaucher. A rake. A frisker. (Jane became something of a walking thesaurus when she was upset, a side effect of too much reading.)

“Dalliances, Billingsly. My dalliances.”

Public poetry readings were known to be a rough business, especially when presenting new material. A man could lose a lot more than just his pride.

Dogs were uncomplicated. They loved you without expectation. They were devoted and loyal, not because you were the king and you could have their heads chopped off if they displeased you, but because it was in their nature to be so. Most of the time he greatly preferred the company of dogs to the company of men.

But if you are a bucker of the system, a friend of truth, an ally of love, and a believer in magic, then read on.

At that moment we should confess that Edward briefly considered murdering his dear sweet grandmother. And he might have gotten away with it, too, on account of the rest of the world thinking the old lady was already dead.

“Armies aren’t very good about carrying libraries with them. I can’t imagine why. We’d fight so much less if everyone would just sit down and read.”