Teaser Tuesday: Exquisite Captive, Reluctantly Charmed, Beware the Wild, If I Stay, & A Sudden Light

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly feature, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

What is it with these humans? They find out they've got a jinni to do their bidding and they suddenly think it's Aladdin, like I could snap my fingers and shazam! - instant gratification.

~ Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios, Kindle Location 135 (ARC)

Goodreads

But for me, he is that guy. The one who pops up now and again. The one who flashes back. The one I've tried to forget about but found his smile tattooed on the inside of my eyelids. The one that I've embarrassingly googled a lot, and facebooked, and when I hear his name spoke. I still blush. He's the one that I can't help wondering about. He's my what if guy and I can't shake him.

~ Reluctantly Charmed by Ellie O'Neill, Kindle Location 344-347

Goodreads

Pretending is the sort of lying I learned from my mama when I was six years old. when there's a bear living inside your house and he's got a tendency to get spitting mad, you don't tell anyone about it. You pretend it's normal. you ignore the spitting as best you can and clean up after. And when that bear gets to swinging his big paws, you pretend you're the clumsy one. After all, mishaps are bound to happen when you aren't paying attention. There's always a little piece of truth stuck inside a good pretending.

~ Beware the Wild by Natalie C. Parker, Kindle Location 1123 (ARC)

Goodreads

Later that night, I stopped by Adam's house to say I was sorry. He accepted my apology with a bemused kiss on the nose. And then nothing changed. He and Kim remained cordial but distant, no matter how much I tried to sell them on each other. The funny thing was, I never really bought into Kim's notion that they were somehow bound together through me--until just now when I saw her half carry him down the hospital corridor.

~ If I Stay by Gayle Forman, pg. 116

Goodreads

Stories continue in all directions to include even the retelling of the stories themselves, as legend is informed by interpretation, and interpretation is informed by time. And so I tell my story to you, as the Mariner told his: he, standing outside the wedding party, snatching at a passing wrist, paralyzing his victim with his gaze; I, standing with my family at the edge of this immortal forest. I tell this story because telling this story is what I must do.

~ A Sudden Light by Garth Stein, Kindle Location 128-131 (ARC)

Goodreads