Blind Speed Dating #8

Title: LIGHT FROM OTHER WINDOWS

Genre: Contemporary adult lit

Word Count: 86,533

Query:

Nineteen year old Josh Maitland is on the last leg of a gap year trip round the world when the tsunami hits the Canary Islands. For the family he leaves behind, his travel blog makes devastating reading; revealing secrets he knew about them all - and one about himself that will change how they see him forever.

I’m still unagented but was the winner of last year’s debut novel competition run by Wink Publishing. Consequently my previous novel, FIVE TO ONE, is being epublished March and now I’m seeking representation for its successor... LIGHT FROM OTHER WINDOWS is complete (or rather, on its sixth draft). My day job is freelance advertising copywriter and I live in Wimbledon, London. 

First 250:

Funny. The bedroom still had his smell.

She paused in the doorway. The room was bathed in a milky January light; utterly still, like someone pulled the plug. When he was here it was never this quiet.

The little blue chest of drawers was on the desk, just like he said. She left the door ajar and kept to the rug, avoiding the bare boards.

Tucked inside the bottom drawer was a wad of papers. When she yanked them out, the drawer came with it (- bloody IKEA!)

Licking her thumb she flicked through for the right one... Ripped-out page from a glossy about the new iPad... Three old greetings cards (one from her – ah!)... Flier for a club they’d never been to, and - something else, creased into quarters...

Gotcha!  

She folded it up again, slid it into her waistband and put the rest back in the drawer.

His posters stared back from the wall: a couple of rappers looked new, but she could swear those rugby pics had been there since they were in Year Seven. Mad...

Mad but typical - he didn’t care! Even his ancient teddy was still there by the wardrobe, one paw sticking out like it was hitching a lift from the Teletubbies - when was he going to get rid of –

Laughter. Seeping up from downstairs...

Four strides and she was back on the landing. Quick peep over the banister and –

All clear. 

She nipped into the bathroom and flushed.