“My life had become nothing to brag about, only something to survive, and for that I had no one to blame but myself”
“When I was a child in Scotland, I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures.”
“Kagiso dealt in ideals; it had never occurred to him that others might trade in vengeance.”
“Names tell stories, especially place-names, and sometimes they even move, taking their history with them.”
“In a refugee camp, stories are everything. Everyone has one, having just slipped out from the grip of a nightmare.”
“He was many men and no man at all. He was a hysterical little bundle of possibilities that could never come true.”
“It all had an irksome feeling of déjà vu. This had happened to me in a fashion before - but at least this time I had a working phone and we were below the snow-line.”
“He sums things up, laying the hand over the cold, inert torso lying in the grass: this one's dead and I'm alive, so I'd better get out of here”
“Every morning when I wake up, I'm always surprised, sometimes crestfallen, to have been spat out again, tender and bruised and somehow a little less.”
“Remember this: if, in the act of creation, you find yourself, just for a moment, losing all sense of time and being lifted up into a great, all-embracing 'Yes!' . . . you have found the place where creation takes wing”
An Evie Activity Pack!
True or false animal facts, a spot the difference, a wordsearch and more! Download this Evie and the Animals activity pack to use at home or in school.
“Do we have to be religious to be moral? Do we have to believe in God to be good? These questions may sound impertinent to people without a religion or clear belief in God who are trying to lead a good life.”
“Was it the bourbon or the dye fumes that made the pink walls quiver like vaginal lips?”
“A dark extravagant shape slowly detached itself from the grey overall of sea and sky . . .”
“‘You said the War ended decades ago.’ The angel darkens to a silhouette. Ice crystals form in the vapour rising from his shoulders, hardening into wings. ‘Oh Hagar.’ His voice shrinks to a whisper. ‘War doesn’t end. It sleeps.'”
‘February’s Son is an excellent sequel — full of surprises, streaked with compassion — that highlights the art of tartan noir. McCoy, trying to work out “what’s right and what’s wrong”, and Cooper, who just does “what has to be done”, make one hell of a damaged duo.’
Mark Sanderson
Evening Standard
