Cathy Earnshaw as imagined by the incomparable Fritz Eichenberg.

Isn’t there something amazing about the power of a great adjective?  Not a gratuitious one, or a self-indulgent one…I’m talking those words that grab you at the throat and put a twinkle (or a tear) in your eye.

Take the word “incorrigible.”  There’s a reason Stephanie Burgis‘s book is so well-anticipated stateside…it has an immediately evocative title!  Then there’s Scarlett, who is described as “arresting,” “gallant,” and “forward” at turns.  And then there’s a heroine who’s been on my mind lately, not least of all because she challenges and often upsets me…Cathy Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights:

A wild, wicked slip she was… At fifteen she was the queen of the countryside; she had no peer; and she did turn out a haughty, headstrong creature!

Would we feel as tempted and as threatened by Cathy if it weren’t for Emily Brontë’s carefully-selected descriptors?

So tell me…what are your favorite words these days?  What descriptions make you drool (or drive you mad)?

P.S. – Isn’t it appropriate that Kat won Stephanie’s copy of Kat, Incorrigible?  I think so.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the fabulous Lorelei King audiobook contest.  Several entries and one random number selecter later and we have a winner…Katie Noah Gibson of Cakes, Tea, and Dreams!

Congrats, Katie…I’ll be in touch to arrange delivery of Lorelei’s Audy and Audiophile Award-winning reading of Sandra Dallas’s Tallgrass…so be sure to tell us how you liked it!