The Writer's Voice #8 - BROTHERLY LOVE (YA)

Title: BROTHERLY LOVE

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Word Count: 95,000

Query

With a bright music career in her future, and plans to marry her childhood sweetheart after graduation, life is charmed for seventeen-year-old Lacy Dalton.

Until Nick Martin happens.

Nick has been in love with Lacy since she first started dating his little brother Kevin. He’s waited years for an opportunity to steal Lacy away from Kevin. With graduation and the subsequent wedding only six months away, he’s running out of time. Tired of waiting on fate to intervene, Nick takes matters into his own hands and devises a scheme to have Lacy catch Kevin being unfaithful. He intends to be the hero who swoops in to mend her broken heart afterwards, but his plan costs Lacy more than just a fiancé.

That one night of betrayal sets off a devastating chain of events for Lacy, ending in the accidental death of her mother, and the mental breakdown of her terminally ill father. After losing everyone she loves, along with all the dreams she had for her future, only tattered shreds of her once perfect life remain. Through it all, Nick is there by her side helping Lacy along her path of restoration and recovery. As new hopes, new dreams, and a new love arise from the rubble, Lacy forges a new future for herself.

Unfortunately for Nick, if his duplicity is exposed, destiny may find a way of righting its course.

First 250

Lacy

I gathered up my homework from the floor at the foot of Kevin’s bed. Not that there was much to gather. We’d spent more time kissing than studying.

“Just stay for ten more minutes,” he begged, trying to tug my backpack away to stall me.

“I can’t, Kevin. If I don’t leave now your mom is going to come up in a few minutes and send me home.”

When I started to stand he pulled me back to the carpet and pinned me down with another kiss.

“Sneak back out later.”

“You take down bleach-blonde over there and I’ll think about it,” I bargained, nodding toward the poster of the naked model taped to the ceiling over his bed.

“That’s not fair. You’ve got dude posters hanging all over your room.”

“With their clotheson.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll take down Sheila when I don’t need her anymore.”

I grinned and tried to shove him off me. “You’ve seen me naked, remember?”

“That doesn’t count. We were nine and you didn’t have boobs yet,” he teased, copping a feel over my blouse.

I maneuvered his hand away by lacing fingers with his and kissing his knuckles. “Your hormones can wait six more months. After graduation and the wedding.”

“Test drive?”

“No,” I said, laughing over his tireless persistence.

“Lacy. Kevin.” Kevin’s mother tapped a warning knock on the door. Kevin rolled away from me before she cracked it open to look in on us. “It’s getting late.”