The Top Ten Quotes We Love from The Merry Band

​Happy third publishing anniversary to The Merry Band, book 2 in the Plot Bandits series by Katherine Vick! Reviewers are calling this series “a rip-roaring underdog tale” and “hilarious...with a heart.” It’s perfect for fans of Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde, and Piers Anthony.

Need a bit more convincing to dive into the book? Then read the ten awesome quotes (excerpts, really) from The Merry Band that we’ve compiled here!

​1. “Look here,” he insisted. “If you keep pressing this, I’ll feel very guilty about giving you a thrashing and chopping off your limbs and I’ll be happy to apologise for it in whatever manner you see fit. But that isn’t going to stop me from doing it.”


2. Shoulders, she knew, thought she [Flirt] was reckless. But it wasn’t recklessness exactly. It was an urge, a need, a desperation to prove to herself and to the rest of the world that she was worth so much more than they liked to believe.

Her designated role in life had never been a challenging one. Where was the skill in waving a bosom that wasn’t even hers, in serving pints of ale, giggling as they slapped her backside, simpering as they called her darling and moved in for the lips? It was so hard to move past the label of her birth, for even when she had flourished a sword, defeated a Warrior Woman and slain a Barbarian, what had they called her? Still, after that, what was she?


3. “Thank you so much.” The leading elf was gazing down at Cackle with an adoration that was frankly embarrassing as he passed the socks back to his companions. “You are the most...” He shook his head as he stared at the warty vision before him with love in his eyes. “You are the only person I’ve ever met who really understands how hard it is to live up a tree!” he exclaimed. “Oh, it’s all very well when The Narrative’s there to send you gliding through the branches, but no one ever thinks about how tough it is for us balancing around up there when it’s gone! Twigs in your backside, leaves in your hair, bark-burn! Birds in your face and insects down your tunic! Only two days ago, poor Windblossom slipped on a wet branch, fell twenty feet, and land­ed on a badger! It’s a nightmare!”


4. Princess Pleasance had a scream that could shatter mountains and ruin a glassmaker’s living. It was certainly enough to get Fodder’s attention.

He’d barely had his feet on the top of the crag, breathing hard and groping for horizontality as Flirt coiled up their rope, when the earth-cracking scream had almost knocked him back over the edge. Shoul­ders, who had been only a couple of sentences into his tirade about her disappearance, was startled into silence by the scream, but it took only a brief exchange of glances for the friends to roughly grab their things and belt in the direction of the sound. Frantically, they’d scoured the rocks and crags in front of them for any sign of Pleasance’s blue velvet or Dullard’s lanky frame, which was why it came as something of a surprise when a giant scarlet shadow swooped out of the twilight and snatched them from their feet.


5. “Oh!” The strangest look passed over the insane prince’s face. He glanced at his two companions. “I’ve just had the oddest urge! I think the narrative wishes me to...cackle.”

“Cackle?” The unnatural woman grinned. “What, you?”

“Yes. Yes, it definitely wants cackling.” Tretaptus paused thoughtfully. “And possibly some manner of declaration about how if I can’t have the princess’s love, no one can? And yes...yes. A fist shake. Definitely a fist shake.” One of the prince’s hands gave a rather lame shudder nominally skywards. He pondered it a moment before shaking his head. “No, I do apologise, but that simply isn’t me at all. Not to mention it’s terribly undignified.”  [This excerpt is from a passage In Narrative, since we can’t indicate that with a font change here.]


6. As a man not unused to finding his helmet-clad head hurled at a rate of knots through dark foliage, Shoulders was able to endure the dizzy, bouncing ride of his tumbling head with the resigned practicality of an experienced Disposable.


7. The fool! He had no idea of the forces he was playing with, of what his stupid game might do. He’d never seen that room and those shapes; he’d never heard the stories of the incident of Quickening all those Quests ago. So very few had. The Courtiers had passed the knowledge down, and the pixies remembered, and both had more sense than to tell of what they knew. The world was not ready.


8. Dullard had seen such falls before. In Narrative, they generally fell between Hero and Heroine, a graceful plunge to the ground that ended with the would-be couple staring into each other’s eyes for a profound instant before leaping back into the fray against whatever danger, battle, or peril had caused them to tumble in the first place. And whilst he would never have even dreamed of presuming himself worthy of being party to any aspect of that scenario, he had to admit that the prosaic reality he got was jarring.

Pleasance’s elbows plunged into his stomach, driving the wind from his lungs. And then they shared in the glorious mutual profound­ness of cracking heads.


9. “Be not afeared!” The Messenger’s vaguely patronising tone drift­ed down from above. “Despite his great youth, The Child is a divinity, just as I am. Be not fooled by his infant face; he will care for thee well!”

“The Child?” Flirt stared at the towering man with his bulk and his pockmarks, a man who had clearly left childhood behind quite some time before. She blinked.

“That is correct.” The so-called Child’s squeaky voice cracked. “I am the youngest of the Gods, left forever youthful so to express inno­cence into a harsh and blighted world!”


10. “All I did on that beach was delay the inevitable. The moment The Narrative catches up with me, I’ll be in love with a clammy-fingered, foul-breathed Boy of Destiny, and that’ll be the end of it.”



. . . Hooked yet? Grab a copy here to see how all these quotes are tied together!

The Merry Band and its series are available in paperback and e-book formats (DRM unlocked) on Amazon, including Kindle Unlimited, and on Barnes & Noble’s website.

Check out our author interview with Katherine here, our official book review here, and a character interview with the ironically named Princess Pleasance here.


Other articles in our Top 10 Quotes series:

The Disposable (Plot Bandits #1)
The Narrative (Plot Bandits #3)
The Taskmaster (Plot Bandits #4)
​Bargaining Power
Hunter's Moon
Sand to Glass (Mythusian Empire #1)
The Blessed (Mythusian Empire #2)
The Cosmic Turkey
The Star-Crossed Pelican (Cosmic Turkey #2)
Skate the Thief (Rag and Bone Chronicles #1)
Skate the Seeker (Rag and Bone Chronicles #2)
Painter of the Dead
The Land of the Purple Ring

As an Amazon associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.