A feeling of disquiet continues to haunt me. As a youth one dreams of love; by the time one wakes, it is too late.

Susanne Alleyn’s Game of Patience is a well-crafted historical mystery, authentic in every detail. Wonderfully entertaining.

My other treasure was my virginity, and I’d thought of selling it too, years back, to the steward’s hunchback son. I had refrained, holding out -I told myself- for a higher bidder. Now I fancied myself ruler of an impregnable realm.

You are thinking of the past.” I put my arms around her. She’d risen from childbed too soon. “We are the past,” she said.

Daggers ever at the ready, I went about the day: children fed, linens mended, bedclothes aired. In little ways one conquers fear.

One leads, willing or not,” Deputy Tallien answered. “It takes courage to face one’s own death but even more so the death of others. We are learning this lesson well.

The Queen has been guillotined, accused of crimes beyond imagining. Last night she appeared to me in a dream, handing me her head.

We are born, we live and we die – in the midst of the marvelous.

Each moment of life is a step toward death.

I want to go with you," I told him."To Egypt?" I whispered."Wherever you go.