The Lonely Hearts Book Club

by Lucy Gilmore

I’d been on a cozy-mystery kick lately, so I knew better than anyone what had to have happened when a cane was found abandoned.

“You can’t stop directly in front of the house you’re staking out. Haven’t you read any spy books?”

I love that Sloane constantly references books the way I reference movie genres.

What are you supposed to do with your heart when it’s already been buried six feet deep?”

In many ways, every death was separated by a lifetime. There was before and there was after, and the only thing that linked them was a wisp of a memory that seemed to be fading with every passing day.

Life stories were written in ink, not pencil. Once they were down, the only thing you could do was turn the page.

This world was a terrible place. It gave you people to love and then took them away before you stopped loving them. It made you mean and angry and cruel to those who needed you most. It ground you down until it was all you could do to get through the day. But most of all, it tried to convince you that you were alone in your suffering.