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The Island of Doctor Quilldancer
She: “Hey! I thought you were the mad scientist around here!”
He: “Ah, no. Place where I work frowns on the bwa-ha-ha stuff. Bad for fundraising.”
She: “So I’ve got to do it?!?”
He: “The fundraising? No, we’ve got experts to … oi! Put .. the .. lab .. coat .. down! Do I wish to know where this is coming from?”
She: “The island!”
He: “The one we live on?”
She: “Not this island! That island! The one with all the animals on it!”
He: “The critters we’ve got aren’t good enough?”
She: “Not for the military. They wanted something special.”
He: “Special forces?”
She: “Exactly!”
He: “Such as?”
She: “Well, cross a chimpanzee with a mouse and you get something really small and really smart. Perfect for espionage. And their sense of humor helps with training and esprit de corps.”
He: “Cool. Did it work?”
She: “Not really. It’s hard to spy on people when they’re standing on tables and screaming.”
He: “Should’ve crossed the chimps with starlings. Aerial reconnaissance.”
She: “Worked fine until the chicken hawks showed up. Then they figured out that, screw the bananas, screw the esprit, they could get killed out there! And they went AWOL.”
He: “You would expect them to be intelligent.”
She: “And then there was the cross between the rhinoceros and the cheetah.”
He: “Woot! Fast biodegradable armor!”
She: “Fast biodegradable dumb armor. How do you control a tank that can run you down at 60 miles per hour and eat you, whether you’re friend or foe?”
He: “Well, what did you expect? You were cheetahing! Did no one call you on this?”
She: “Why would they? We were taking gorilla warfare to new levels!”
He: “And then you woke up?”
She: “Um, well, yeah!”
He: “Good. I was wondering how I was going to get a security clearance on short notice so you wouldn’t have to kill me for listening to this.”
She: “You know what’s weird?”
He: “Weirder than AWOL flying chimpanzees?”
She: “Here I am, designing all these beasts and doing the mad scientist thing, and at the same time I’m the gal jumping up and down yelling this is a really dumb idea! Shouldn’t that be, like, two people?”
He: “It’s a dream. You can do whatever you want, be whatever you can, ah, dream up. Just don’t try this at home, huh?”
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ARC Reader Response!
Wow, I really enjoyed this book!! Great first novel. Can’t wait to read Katy’s & Gar’s story, & hopefully Ty’s, too. Really one of the best romances I’ve read in a good while. Authentic in setting & in attraction/desire & in fears. Reminds me a little of Janith Hooper’s books, while in a more modern setting. Well-edited & nothing too major in proofreading, mostly just little things. The angst dragged on a little near the end, but I can see why. It was a great example of sacrificial love & patience. Ruth was strong, but Boaz made sure to protect her in his fields. He also finagled a way to ensure he could marry her, which reminds me a little of Griffin’s hiring of Bella. Loved it!
ARC ReaderWhoohoo! I know that all my reader responses won’t be great, but I like this start.
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Easy Fix
She: “It’s hard keeping all the plot lines straight when you’re writing several stories at once.”
He: “Tough to keep all the alibis consistent, is it?”
She (ignoring him): “Not to mention all the character names straight. And how they look. Did she have red hair in this other story too?”
He: “Easy fix. Keep the stories going long enough, and they’ll all have blue hair.”
She (still ignoring him): “So I’ve set up this universal character table, I can refer to it instead of having to go back to each story every time I need to check on a name, or eye color, or what have you.”
He: “You have a Universal character table? Cool! Do you have a Paramount one?”
She (belatedly suspicious): “.. what?”
He: “Or a 20th Century Fox one, or a …”
She: “Warner Brothers, or a Disney, or a Columbia. Yes dear, I’ve got them all covered.”
He: “Nice.”
She: “And you’re a jerk.”
He: “!!”
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It Is Well With My Bowl
She: “Please pass the salad dressing?”
He: “OK … Dang!”
She: “What dang?”
He: “Something else we can’t use because we have town water.”
She: “I like town water. Or do you really wish to go back to flushing the toilet with a bucket?”
He: “Not I. But it means we can’t use the salad dressing. Read.”
She: “‘Shake well.’”
He: “Exactly! We don’t have a well. And if you think I’m going to interrupt my dinner to track the Honolulu Water Department’s lines mauka five miles and up two thousand feet to shake their well, just so I can have a spot of sauce on my lettuce, you can think again.”
She: “I’m so glad I asked …”