Destynnee Realta

“He wore camel-colored breeches and dark brown Hessian riding boots, a snow-white shirt held together at the throat with a gold pin and a dark brown vest with little gold fleurs-de-lis embroidered on it. Kingsley looked magnificent, like a Regency-era fever dream. If Jane Austen had set eyes on Kingsley, she would never have written her genteel comedies of manner. She would have written porn.”
― Tiffany Reisz, The Queen

“You go too far,” Søren said, biting off each word. “You make choices you later regret and then blame anyone but yourself for what you suffer at your own hand. You don’t need me to hurt you. You do that to yourself. You can blame me and you can punish me for all my crimes, real and imagined. But you leave Eleanor out of this petty plan of yours to get your revenge on me. She is my heart. If anything happens to her because of you, I will castrate you. I know how much you want children. I will take that dream from you with my bare hands and a rusty knife. You know what I’m capable of. And you know I know how, because I have done it before. My father survived the procedure. You’ll be lucky if you do.”
― Tiffany Reisz, The Queen

“Penance? You? His lover? My dear Eleanor—you love a priest. The sin itself carries its own penance.”
― Tiffany Reisz, The Confessions: Companion to The Queen

“Why does it always have to hurt so much?” Kingsley asked.


“What?”


“Life.”


Nora smiled. “God’s a sadist. That’s why.”


“You think so?”


“Oh, I know so,” Nora said. “I’m a writer. I do what God does in miniature every time I write a book. I create worlds and people out of nothing—ex nihilo—and I torture the fuck out of them for four hundred pages.”


“Because you’re a sadist?”


“Partly that. Plus...if I didn’t torture them it would be a real fucking short book. And trust me on this, King, there is no money in short stories.”


Kingsley laughed and buried his head into her lap again, seeking her comfort and safety and the shelter of someone stronger.


“You’ve solved the oldest theological conundrum of all time,” Kingsley said. “Why does God allow suffering? Because there’s no money in short stories.”


“I’ll tell you one more little secret about being a god. Even though I torture them for four hundred pages, it hurts me to do it.”


“They aren’t real. Why does it hurt?”


“I created them. They’re mine. I love them. God loves us, too, even when He hurts us. Especially when He hurts us, I imagine.”
― Tiffany Reisz, The Queen