Autumn of the Grimoire (Sisters Solstice, #1)

by J.L. Vampa

For anyone who has ever had to claw their way forward.

It’s good for the soul to have something to crave; to tend; to strive for.

It was a dangerous game to play, but there was no way in the seven realms she was marrying anyone without a fight.

Anne tied a ribbon in Agatha’s auburn hair like a toddling babe and she considered stabbing both her maidservants out of spite.

Agatha sat on a bench, hidden behind a damnable parasol—of all the horrible things, but at least it was black.

“You do not believe in love, then?” “Of course I do, which is precisely why I loathe archaic cattle breeding events meant to allow aristocrats and dandies to manipulate women into marriage.”

“You’re sinister and I adore you!”

One must take pains to remember that life deals in greys. What is white to one might very well be black to another. It matters not who is right or wrong, but how we mutually treat one another in the midst of the grey.

Eleanor had said it looked like a widow’s nightgown, and that was precisely when Agatha knew it was perfect.

Tears welled in her eyes even as courage and indignation filled her heart. Let her silent roar bleed into their very souls until it reminded them of the burned witches, the brutalised outsiders, and the abused peasants. Let it remind them that their time of oppressing others was through.

If she wanted to, she could squash a man like a fetid slug between her long fingernails.

“Anyone who sees us coming will think death has come to chase them.”

She wanted to roll her eyes and tell him she’d incited wars and slit throats—she could handle a devious crown.

The moon has darkness in her midst, and she is more majestic for it, is she not?”

If only there were a place, bent by time and crumbling with age, where one could escape wrong and right and just be.

Her heart cracked at the very same moment it healed.

I’m a goddess damned witch and I can wield my own sword.”

He was irrevocably, desperately in love with her.

Our grave will be dug as one, and we’ll climb in together.