Canoodle: Kiss and cuddle.
Hey, don't look at me like that. I more or less grasped what it ought to mean, by sound alone, but this was the context:
"It was almost exactly like the caves to the east where my girl cousins met their swains to canoodle."
I had to make sure.
The quote belongs to Jessica Day George's Dragon Slippers and you should know that I LOVE Fairy Tales deconstructions. So far (less than ten pages in) this one already hits "I'll buy", so big kudos there (I'm a poor student, I buy about 1 in 50 books I read, so there, big compliment indeed).
I mean, it starts with bits like this:
"To be blunt, I was no beauty, and as I could not spin straw into gold or cry diamond tears, there was no reason for a wealthy suitor to overlook the fact that I had no dowry whatsoever.
“It will have to be the dragon,” my silly aunt declared as we all sat around the hearth, holding what my uncle called a council of war. “Surely a brave adventuring knight will save her from its clutches,” she continued, “and then we shall all be taken away to live in his castle.” She was also very fond of reading romantic tales."
And later:
"I was no longer as worried about being eaten as I had been. This dragon did not seem that inclined towards munching on human flesh. I was more worried that he would send me away empty-handed, without either a champion or a generous dowry. I didn’t want the champion, but the dowry-money would come in handy. It seemed that I had heard stories of noble creatures such as dragons taking pity on dowryless girls and gifting them with ancient treasures. Hadn’t I? Perhaps it wasn’t dragons. But surely, to avoid having to fight some overzealous knight, this one might make an exception …"
So worth re-reading.
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