Beard in Hiding (Winston Brothers, #4.5)

by Penny Reid

Trifle was a dessert, and how Baptists justified consuming large quantities of brandy (or whiskey, or rye, or bourbon, whatever your pleasure) during the holidays. Belle called it “flavoring.” But four cups of liquor in one desert containing six servings isn’t flavoring any more than her two-fisted bottom-gropings of young men were hugs.

I loved bright colors. If the good Lord saw fit to give us colors, I felt the least we could do was wear them proudly.

“People who long for their youth, for a simpler time, are really just longing for an existence of blissful ignorance, where other people’s struggles and suffering are conveniently kept quiet so as not to ruin their good time, or their ability to sleep at night. No such time has existed for me.”