"'Kate is quite capable of pushing me into a river hill filled with piranhas,' Alex blurted out. 'With a grandmother like mine, I don't need enemies.'"
Chap. 1 p. 14

"He had to stay in bed for the next two days, as green as a lizard and convinced that he would die if nausea and the pain in his head. His father thought he had a virus, and his mother immediately suspected her mother-in-law but didn't dare accuse her of poisoning her only grandson."
Chap. 2, p. 30

"Foreigners were moving into the region and no one was stopping them as they push the Indians farther and farther toward impenetrable jungle, or killed them, with no fear of being punished."
Chap. 4, p. 64

"The cat and its counterpart repeated those words three times: Alexander, jaguar; Alexander, jaguar; Alexander, jaguar, and then the sand of the plain became phosphorescent, the sky turned...