1: The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman

“You know why no one has killed me yet?”

“Why?”

“Because I never kill anyone,” says Viktor. “Honestly, once you start, that’s it, you have to keep killing.”

“That’s like lip salve,” says Pauline. “Once you start using it, your lips dry out, and so you have to keep using it.”

2: The Lark series by E. Nesbit

Life is a lark—all the parts of it, I mean, that are generally treated seriously: money, and worries about money, and not being sure what’s going to happen. Looked at rightly, all that’s an adventure, a lark. As long as you have enough to eat and to wear and a roof to sleep under, the whole thing’s a lark. Life is a lark for us, and we must treat it as such.

3: A Damsel in Distress by P. G. Wodehouse

I don’t know what your experience has been, but mine is that proposing’s a thing that simply isn’t within the scope of a man who isn’t moderately woozled.

4: Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

She has not run down the stairs like this since she was a teenager, when your heart reaches the front door before your feet.

5: Writing Mr. Wrong by Kelley Armstrong

“Please tell me you’re serious. The hockey star you kissed in high school is now suggesting fake dating? After a meet-cute reunion on live TV? Can I book you guys a hotel room with only one bed?”

6: Lucy Undying by Kiersten White

Then I sat and thought of Mina and had a nice, self-indulgent cry. Sometimes a girl finds herself alone at the feet of an unknown land, covered in grime, having just decapitated a stranger, and it’s all too much.

7: Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: “When shall we three meet again?”

There was a pause. Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: “Well, I can do next Tuesday.”

8: Miss Lattimore’s Letter by Suzanne Allain

By the end of the morning, a morning spent in traversing the room back and forth in earnest conversation, the two young ladies were quite pleased at having made the acquaintance of someone who seemed destined to become a friend. They even had that most important characteristic of all in common: they counted the same books among their favorites.

9: We Love the Nightlife by Rachel Koller Croft

When she smiles at me, I see her fangs have sprouted for the first time. They’re adorable!

10: My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton & Jodi Meadows

So. Her husband-to-be was a philanderer. A smooth operator. A debaucher. A rake. A frisker. (Jane became something of a walking thesaurus when she was upset, a side effect of too much reading.)