Holly Jackson

You killed Barney.’

Real men wear floral when trespassing

Maybe solving murders wasn’t too different from homework, after all. She could feel herself falling head first into it, the rest of the world fading out, like when she got lost in one of her essays or listening to an entire true crime podcast series in one night, or anything really. Teachers called it ‘excellent focus’, but Pip’s mum worried that it fell much closer to obsession

To Mum and Dad,
this first one is for you.

And yet, history’s greatest minds always advised bold over safe; their words good padding for even the worst ideas.

The people you love weren’t algebra: to be calculated, subtracted, or held at arm’s length across a decimal point.

But sometimes remembering isn’t for yourself, sometimes you do it just to make someone else smile.

They were each other’s crutch to lean on when life got too much to carry alone.

Cara’s wasn’t the face of a best friend; it was the face of a sister. It was home.

There was a song in her. A sickly beat troubling the skin on her wrists and neck, a crackling chord as she cleared her throat and the jagged trill of her breath.