Words I wish I'd written

I’m sure you’ve experienced this. You are reading a book and suddenly a sentence or a paragraph jumps off the page. Words you wish you could have written. Right now I’m midway through a debut novel by new writer Tana French. It’s called In The Woods and it follows a murder investigation carried out by male and female police partners Rob and Cassie. As well as being colleagues they enjoy an intense plutonic relationship which is summed up in a few words half way through the book. I’ve revisited this paragraph several times, and I thought I’d share it with you.

The girls I dream of are the gentle ones, wistful by high windows or singing sweet songs at a piano, long hair drifting, tender as apple blossom. But a girl who goes into battle beside you and keeps your back is a different thing, a thing to make you shiver. Think of the first time you slept with someone, or the first time you fell in love; that blinding explosion that left you crackling to the fingertips with electricity, initiated and transformed. I tell you that was nothing at all, beside the power of putting your lives, simply and daily, into each other’s hands.
In The Woods by Tana French published by Hodder. ISBN 978-340-92476-1