Bouncer Post #169

Title: FOR THE NEXT THREE YEARS

Genre: Women's Fiction

Word Count: 80,000

Query:

Hannah discovers a hidden book, and quickly realizes it is about her own life.  The story has landed on the present day, in the present moment.  There are 236 pages left.

She continues reading, unraveling two possible futures for herself.  In the first, Hannah meets the handsome, seemingly perfect, Jared, who gives her the greatest gift of all, a beautiful baby girl.  He also gives her a huge, lifeless apartment, and a cold shoulder.  It’s not a terrible life, but it’s far from the perfection she hoped she’d find.

           

In the other future, Hannah becomes the writer she’s dreamed of being, travelling the world, stumbling into fame and fortune.  She has everything she has ever wanted, but loneliness hangs heavy over her. She loves almost everything about her life, but still, it feels empty.

In both worlds, Hannah meets David, the one person with whom she has a real connection.  In each instance though, they are fated with terrible timing and impossible circumstances.  She can see happiness, but can’t quite grasp it.

For The Next Three Years is a Women’s Fiction manuscript, complete at 80,000 words. Sliding Doors meets Sophie’s Choice, in a heartbreaking tale of one woman’s unwanted glimpse forward, and the torture of deciding her own fate.  

First 250:

The book was wedged tightly behind the fireplace mantle.  Hannah Gordon would never have seen it if the movers hadn’t put the couch in this ridiculous spot.  She wondered for a moment how she would ever drag it across the room, but her thoughts turned back to the book.  She half expected the whole façade of bricks and mortar to come crumbling down as she dug around, trying to pry the thing loose. 

It was stuck.  Really stuck.  But she couldn’t stop digging.  She knew she was doing damage, but she just couldn’t help herself.  It was too intriguing.  A secret, hidden book.  Who wouldn’t be excited about that?  Ok, lots of people wouldn’t, but not people like her, who had spent countless weeks of their lives curled up in library corners, losing themselves in elaborate stories, while avoiding their journalism textbooks.  Fairy tales were much more interesting than studies about white space.

            

It was coming loose.  She felt it give a little, moving only a fraction of an inch, but now she could get a better grip.  One more good pull and it was free, along with a small cloud of dust she managed to inhale almost completely.  She choked, coughing, as notions of asbestos breezed past her mind momentarily, but there was nothing she could do about it now.  She blew away a layer of dust and plaster.  She’d always wanted to do that.  Could there be anything more intriguing than a book so old and neglected that the title was illegible from dust?