Scorched Grace (Sister Holiday Mystery, #1)

by Margot Douaihy

God never judged me as harshly as I judged myself.

If you stop looking, if you get soft for even one second, you’ll miss what’s right in front of you.

Revenge is a stupid way to feel in control. Like all drugs, it doesn’t last, but it sure is fun in the moment.

What was love but an infection.

I hated myself for wanting to possess her.

Is there any torture more elegant than chasing what you’ll never catch?

Hurt people hurt people, Mom told me and Moose. And healed people heal people.

In my old life, one of my gay superpowers was making straight women feel relaxed enough to share their darkest secrets. Deep listening was a skill of the unholy and the holy alike,

Lying is easier than breathing,

“Proust said smell is the human sense most connected to memory. Like time travel. ‘The immense edifice of memory.’

Sometimes the potential of a thing was better than the thing itself.

I did love it. I loved her. Nina knew what I wanted before I did.

Men fucked like grammar schoolteachers diagramming sentences: This goes here, and now that goes there. I’d rather die than be restrained by a dude. But women were unpredictable, like trying to tame a flame. When Nina held me down and looked at me like she wanted to tear my heart out with her teeth, it was ecstasy. We fit together like two clasped hands, slick with sweat.

A naked woman straddling you, muscles tense in her stomach, riding you. Wanting it so bad you thank God to be alive.

My trigger-finger temper. Again and again. So convinced people would fail me, I failed them first. Got it out of the way.