Robin

“I was just reaching for my knitting needles when Mary Alice gripped my arm.
"Play nice," she murmured.
"I wasn't going to kill him," I muttered back. "But a little light stabbing might teach him some manners."
"Focus on the job. I'll trip him when we get inside," she promised.
"That's real friendship," I told her.”
― Deanna Raybourn, Killers of a Certain Age

“A bunch of writers in a room requires a collective noun that the English language doesn’t have. A condolence, perhaps. A sympathy. It’s a war hospital for the written word.”
― Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

“It seemed as if the very foundations of democracy were being undermined in ways she hadn't seen since the war, which was longer than many of her subjects' lifetimes. Like everyone else, she felt they were all on the brink of something they didn't fully understand, grasping around to hold on to whatever they believed, praying that it would stand.”
― S.J. Bennett, A Three Dog Problem

“He offered her his arm and they walked down the aisle together, towards the window. His window. It showed timelessness, and recovery and hope. It didn't stop her feeling terribly for the young man in the attic room and the innocent girl in her flat, and even the other one, who suffered such terrors before she died, but it gave her the strength to walk calmly and capably back into the busy castle, where she was the center of its turning world.
In two days she and half the Household would head back to London to prepare for the State Opening of Parliament. Life very much went on. One did what one could. Right now, it was absolutely time for a little gin.”
― S.J. Bennett, The Windsor Knot