Page 93 of The Midnight Frequency

“How fast your eyes move when you read. So, you guys are basically speed-reading champions, huh?”

“I suppose. We can read more slowly. When I am reading fiction, I often want to consume it more slowly so I can take it in the way the authors intended.”

“Are there not some super fast-paced vampire-written books?”

“Not that I would want to read.”

I waved toward his bookshelves.

“Can I look at and silently—or very loudly—judge your reading choices?” she asked.

“Knock yourself out,” I invited.

I liked it more than I anticipated, seeing her moving around my space like she’d been doing it all along, like she belonged there.

I scanned the document as quickly as possible but found my gaze constantly tracking her as she scanned my shelves, making little sounds at what she found.

Until, finally, she grabbed a tome, stalked back to me, and slammed it down on the counter in front of me.

“You hate romance but have a very loved-looking copy of Sense & Sensibility on your shelf.”

“I do.”

“You’ve read it?”

“Several times.”

“But why?”

“It’s a very good read. Not quite as polished as Pride & Prejudice, but then she was a younger, more unsure writer with this one.”

“Okay. But if you don’t believe in love, why have you read one of the world’s best love stories more than once?”

“I wouldn’t call that a love story.”

“What?” she yelped. “Elinor and Edward? Marianne and Colonel Brandon?”

“Elinor spends the entire novel being competent, correct, and emotionally disciplined to be ‘rewarded’ with a man who requires rescuing from his own bad decisions.”

“Oh, come on. She loved him even when he was engaged to someone else! Fine. Colonel Brandon loved Marianne for sure.”

“Obsession and attraction are not love. And in Marianne’s case, neither is settling for the safe choice after getting taken advantage of by another, more suitable, man.”

“If that’s what you think, then what do you get out of it?”

“It is a fairly accurate record of what options were available to intelligent women in a time that had no use for them.

“I was there, remember, Maggie. Not in that drawing room, but in that world. I watched women of considerable skill and intelligence spend their entire lives negotiating for even the smallest of freedoms within a system that refused to bend for them.

“Austen knew exactly what she was writing. And it wasn’t romance.”

“I think it can be two things at once. She can absolutely be pointing out the harsh reality of the times and giving characters love stories.”

“I acknowledge that was possibly how most people interpret it. I think it just shows women surviving the best way they could in a world that wouldn’t allow them to live how they wanted to.”

To that, she rolled her eyes.

“I bet you that some of those records are love songs.” She waved toward the cases full of them.