The search page on a Kindle showing instances of the phrase "his heart in his mouth" in the latest Ken Follett book.

Reading the new Ken Follett book The Pillars of the Earth on his brand new Kindle, blogger Mark Hurst “discovered a new trick”: you can search a phrase that you think a writer might have repeated. He discovered it when a certain phrase of Follett’s seemed to keep coming up until Hurst began wondering “where was the editor?” The phrase? It was “his heart is in his mouth.” As Hurst details in a posting on his blog, GoodExperience.com, “This is how Follett described a character who was nervous or anxious or frightened. It’s not the most refined metaphor to begin with, but there it was — and then a few pages later, someone else’s heart was in his mouth — and then, next chapter, another heart in another mouth – and again — more hearts, more mouths — until I finally finished the book and thought, just how many times did Follett use that ONE metaphor in a single book?” On a Kindle, says Hurst, that’s easily answered: “13. Actually 17, if you count the four instances of ‘her heart in her mouth.’ (It seems that men are, on the whole, a lot hungrier for coronary snacks.)” Say what you will, you can’t do that with the old dead-tree technology. No sir.