“ The way black women say "girl" can be magical. Frankly, I have no solid beliefs about the survival of consciousness after physical death. But if it… - Abigail Padgett

"Child of Silence" is one doggone good mystery/thriller!!

“It occurred to Bo that Texas songs were always about the sky because there simply wasn't anything else. No hill, no mound, not even a ripple of earth to break the dizzying sweep of the eye toward infinity. “Flat,” she decided, was a term insufficient to the terrain. It was more than that. It was actually a negative pull, an inverted gasp of ground beneath a firmament so boundless it might threaten the sanity of even those who weren't already pushing the edge.

“Prisoners, slaves, women and children, the sick, weak, disabled, animals, the earth itself – all were fair game for the cruel sport of those who had power. It was wrong, it was evil, but it was a fact of life.