Bouncer Post #103

WRAITH

Dark Fantasy

125,000 words

Query:

Betrothed to a member of Londinium’s ruling class and daughter of the scientist behind the drug to which half of the city is addicted, Lyra Vega has always had her life mapped out for her. But when she’s framed and found guilty of murdering her family, her life takes a terrifying turn.

Sentenced to life in the Sídhe, a prison from which no one ever returns, Lyra soon discovers she has been transported to a parallel world. She is determined to escape and find her parents’ killer, but first she must survive.

Lyra is captured by men working for the Sídhe’s warden and trained as a gladiator. Her feelings toward Bones, her master-at-arms, become increasingly contradictory and volatile but she can’t deny their attraction. She no longer knows who the real enemy is.

When the warden comes to the Sídhe, Lyra will have to choose between avenging her family and the man she loves.

WRAITH interweaves mythical aspects with alt-history to create a dark fantasy in the vein of Poison Study and The Girl of Fire and Thorns. 

First 250:

Lyra cowered in the shadow of her cell in the bowels of the Star Chamber. She was exhausted and terrified, waiting for her sentence to be carried out. The heavy metal door banged open and a fearsome-looking sentry appeared.

“Come!” he barked. The guard bound her hands and forced a scratchy, black hood over her head. He reeked of onions and power.

He shoved her down a corridor and then up a flight of stairs. When, at last, her hood was removed, she was seated in an oddly shaped room. A sour-faced Navvie woman stared at her.

"Where am I?” Lyra asked.

“Transit.” The middle-aged woman’s tone was curt. She pointed at her blood-drenched party dress. “Strip.”

Uncertainly, she did as she was told.

The woman huffed grumpily, her navy-blue uniform expanding and contracting. It was emblazoned with the insignia of the Star Chamber. She handed Lyra a roughened washcloth and a pail of soapy water. Apparently, they wanted her to be clean before they transported her to the Castellum.

She scrubbed her skin raw, carefully avoiding the IdemStrap and the new status it displayed. The female prison guard fetched a pearl-grey jumpsuit from a lacquered wardrobe. Then she thrust it in her face.

“Change,” she commanded in a thick Navvie accent.

Obediently, Lyra pulled on the fresh garments. The woman stepped back, crossing her arms, and examined her charge. “We almost never get Regents, Lady Vega,” she said in a mean-spirited manner.

Lyra bit her lip. She was in no state to make conversation. In the prison uniform that pooled around her she felt minuscule, like she was being swallowed whole.

Bouncer Post #102

 Title: GARDEN OF THORNS

Genre: YA Fantasy

Word Count: 96,000

Query:

Kidnapped as a child, seventeen-year-old Rose knows how fragile life as a dancing Flower can be. Forced into The Garden, a burlesque troupe of slave girls, she has learned to see dangers everywhere when a wrong word could mean losing your tongue—or worse.

When The Garden is booked to perform for the lord of the kingdom and her slave master kills a fellow dancer to keep Rose in check, she decides to break free. Her plan is simple: grab a hostage and run like hell. What she didn't count on was her hostage being the leader of a rebellion against the current ruler, and she definitely never dreamed she’d end up joining. But with her old slave master threatening to kill off a dancer a day until she returns and the kingdom looking to stamp out the rebels, Rose quickly realizes that nowhere is really safe, especially since she’s the unwilling heir to the throne.

                                    

Caught between the family she’s created for herself in the rebellion and the title she’s never wanted, Rose must decide whether her birthright is a crown of petals or a crown of thorns. Only then will she be able to rescue the other Flowers she abandoned, unite the war-torn kingdom and maybe even save herself.

First 250:

My new shackles are lined with needle-thin spikes that bite into my chapped wrists and ankles. Their constant prickling is a reminder of what my attempted freedom cost me, a warning of what another failed break will mean. My carriage, cage really, jolts to a stop and I fly off the splintered bench, landing hard on my hands and knees in the dirty straw that lines the floor. Inching up until I'm sitting, I look up at the wooden roof. A crack of light spills into the cart, its weak rays like gentle fingers on my face. It gives the illusion of hope. I turn away from it before that seed can take root in my chest and grow.

From the outside, our traveling band looks a lot like the circus that used to visit my father’s land every spring. The brightly colored carriages portray the traveling 13 Dancing Flowers, but unlike the circus, we aren’t meant to entertain the children. The paintings on the sides of our carts are meant to tantalize, each dress is brighter than the last, accentuating the curves and dips of our forms as we dance, forced to lose one petal at a time.

Sounds rise up from the crack in my wooden cage: men shouting orders, horses whinnying impatiently, cart doors being thrown back and the materials to make our temporary garden being dragged out of storage. I crawl towards the small hole in the edge of my cart and wait. The banging begins like clockwork.

Bouncer Post #101

Title: THE ONES

Genre: YA light Sci Fi

Word Count: 72,500

Query:

Numerology, the mystical science of numbers. Straight-A student Mina Gale doesn’t think much of patchouli-scented crap like that. She’s a practical, play-it-safe kind of girl if ever there was one.

Between her increasingly intrusive epilepsy and her dad’s recent death, all Mina wants is to feel like less of a weirdo outsider at Grove High. Well, that and a conversation with the darkly handsome new transfer student, Nico Payne. She just wishes her classmates would stop looking at her like she belongs in another dimension or something. What Mina doesn’t know yet is…

She kind of does. 

Turns out there’s a good reason Mina hasn’t been able to keep her mind off Nico. They’re numerological soul mates. Powerful “double elevens” who share an energy so charged it can punch open doors between eleven parallel universes.

When a door opens unexpectedly, Mina and Nico are sucked off their feet…and into another world. Stranded without a guide, a map or a clue what any of this double eleven stuff really means, the pair sets out to find their way home.  

The journey rockets them from highs (an afterlife dimension where Mina reunites with her deceased father) to lows (a narrow scrape with death in an anti-gravity world). It’s going to be a dangerous trek home, and playing it safe just isn’t going to cut it anymore if Mina wants to make it back alive.

But if holes keep ripping between dimensions every time they kiss, the biggest threat Mina and Nico have yet to face may actually be themselves.

I'm a SCBWI member and a writer/editor with seventeen years of magazine experience. My work has appeared often in Allure, Lucky, Glamour, and The Huffington Post. 

First 250:

The minutes didn’t crawl in Mr. Sykes’ Physics class, they zombie-walked. Each tick of the clock’s second hand was a painful, hunched jerk forward. In the desk diagonal to mine, Nico Payne wasn’t even pretending to pay attention. He kicked one of his Vans up onto his desk and squinted critically at the Bic pen scribble he’d just added to its toe.

God, he squinted great. He’d had the exact same expression on his face the first time I saw him. I’d walked over to Joe’s Italian Ice one hot night this summer and there he was, staring up at the list of flavors like he was contemplating the meaning of life instead of Peaches-N-Cream versus Bada Bing Cherry. One look at the guy and my guts swirled like a chocolate-vanilla twist. If I’d known he was going to be transferring to Grove in the fall, maybe I’d have gone up and introduced myself. 

But knowing me, probably not.

Mr. Sykes erased a velocity chart off the whiteboard and turned to face us. “As human beings,” he said, his voice raspy with age, “we experience the world in three space dimensions. One: Forward and back. Two: Side to side. Three: Up and down. And then, of course, we have the fourth dimension of time. However, many scientists with an interest in string theory believe in the existence of not four but eleven different dimensions.”

Nico smirked as he made Twilight Zone noises. “Do doo do doo do doo do doo…” 

Bouncer Post #100

Title: A BEAUTIFUL NIGHTMARE

Genre: Contemporary NA Romance

Word Count: 90,000

Query

A captive girl learns to see the prince inside the beast in A BEAUTIFUL NIGHTMARE; a figurative and contemporary retelling of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

Although Angelina has just graduated high school, she has an honorary PhD in stoicism. With suppressed memories of the loss of her twin demanding to resurface, Angelina's set on finding an empty, distracting job. So when she meets a passion-exuding man right before a critical job interview, she flees from his kiss without so much as a “We’ll be in touch.”  

If Angelina thought her day couldn't get any crazier, finding herself running from a stranger who knows her name certainly tops it off. Waking up on Haithem's yacht... now that takes the whole damn bakery. He claims it's a misunderstanding, but sending her home becomes trickier when Angelina's temper flares. Her threats fall on the ears of Haithem's father, a powerful tyrant - sorry tycoon, who sees Angelina as a threat. Haithem's solution to protect Angelina may just be the one thing that could destroy her; keeping her forever.

With nothing to hold her memories at bay, blissful distraction beckons in the form of Haithem's tantalising body. That's if he will get off his moral high horse long enough to let her have it. When the walls begin to cave on Angelina, Haithem offers something she had not believed existed - understanding. As Haithem's facade of indifference slips, Angelina aims her sails for his 'west wing'; his closely guarded heart. But when opportunity arises Angelina must decide what she is really prepared to sacrifice for love...

First 250

The fabric of my skirt suit felt damp against my skin. Sweaty armpits were something I would rather do without forty-five minutes before a job interview.

Just concentrate Angelina!

I slid the jacket from my shoulders and draped it over the back of the cafe chair. The laptop sat open on the table taunting me with its interview questions. I took a breath attempting to focus on what I was there for, and not the gossiping mothers in front of me, or the sweet, rich air that promised yet more coffee and maybe even a pastry... I shook my head slightly and focused.

What are my weaknesses?

The air puffed back out of my lips and I tapped my finger on the mouse pad. China clinked on glass. I looked up in time to see the waitress turn around after dumping my overfilled Cappuccino on the tabletop. Brown foam oozed over the full rim. With a sigh I picked up the messy coffee, and inhaled deeply savouring that perfect first sip smell.

My gaze drifted from the cup of steaming goodness in my hands. Huge dark brown eyes collided with mine. I blinked. They did not move on. They did not look past me. If anything they focused in. Like a hook sinking into something inside me, they tugged at me gently like a fish. His large body straightened, turning ever so slightly towards me. Breath rushed from my chest. People moved around him, but he stood fast.

Bouncer Post #99

Title: WAITING FOR APRIL

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Word Count: 104,000

Query:

Seventeen-year-old April Fletcher is unaware she is living her twenty-first life.



April doesn’t know she has never survived to see her eighteenth birthday, nor does she realise that Scott Parker, her best friend, is actually her childhood sweetheart and fiancé from her very first life. Sadly, April is also oblivious to the fact that whenever she dies, Scott is rendered immortal until she returns to him in her next life and confesses her love.



Scott Parker knows. He also knows that this time, things have changed. April has denied her feelings for him, is dating someone else, and with her eighteenth birthday fast approaching, their friendship is falling apart. Scott fears that this may be his last chance to win her heart and save her life.


Unfortunately, what Scott Parker doesn’t know is that none of April's deaths were accidental. There is someone else out there whose immortality is dependent on his soul mate's death.

 
And that person is dead set on living forever.


With a love affair that spans centuries, a paranormal predicament my hero can’t explain, and a murder mystery my heroine doesn’t even remember being a part of, I’m hoping my young adult paranormal romance novel, WAITING FOR APRIL, will be just what you’re looking for.

Written from the perspectives of both Scott and April, and complete at 104,000 words, it would appeal to fans of THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE, by Audrey Niffenegger, and the movie THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT. 

First 250:

If I could sleep, I’d dream it was 1729 again, and I’d save April Anne Fletcher. Perhaps if I’d saved her that day, I wouldn’t have had to watch her die another nineteen times since.

But there was no going back. No way to change the past. All I had was the future, and the determination not to lose her again. So while others slept, I searched for answers, and each morning I stood at my bedroom window, casting my gaze across the immature rows of Henry Brice’s cornfields to where the Fletchers’ house stood. The moments between sunrise and the opening of April’s bedroom curtain were some of the longest of my life.

And I’ve had a long life.

Henry’s footfalls grew closer as he hobbled down the hall. They stopped at my door, only to be replaced by the short, raspy breaths of a man who’d left his prime behind him many years ago. “Is she awake, Scott?”

I didn’t tear my eyes from her window. “I don’t know.”

Henry, my dearest friend since World War Two, had watched April die four times since 1949. He loved her dearly, and for the past seventeen years he’d filled the shoes of a grandfather figure. He treated her like family, and mourned each of her deaths as a beloved friend. With his life drawing to an end, it was his wish to see us reunited before he died.

“Maybe she’s sleeping in. It is her first day of spring break.”