An Unwanted Guest

by Shari Lapena

She can’t just throw everything aside and do what she wants so that she can be happy. Women don’t get to make fools of themselves like that. Society won’t let them. But men do it all the time.

you must take good things when and where you find them. They are rare enough.

Riley is the strangest collection of impressive skills, fierce bravery, and now, a terrible, unpredictable fragility.

How quickly and how absolutely trust—built over many years—can collapse.

He’s learned that people will believe what they want to believe. And it’s truly frightening how easily they’ll believe it.

She thinks suddenly of that line from Shakespeare—where was it from?—One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

“True psychopaths can be very convincing,”