Love Triangle Entry #19

Title: HELIACAL RISING

Genre: paranormal romance

Word Count: 75,000

Query:

Trouble doesn't find Tee Sutton, she seeks it out.  For ten years, she's masked the scars of her mother's abandonment with adrenaline.  Being numb is better than being broken.  When Tee gets busted for breaking and entering and underage consumption, her life turns upside down.  With the threat of expulsion and her senior year looming in the distance, Tee’s principal sends her to Destination Exploration, an outdoor camp tucked deep in the Blackfeet territory of Montana, in hopes of mending her broken conscience.  Banished from everything she knows, Tee views camp as her own personal jail… until she meets Keme.

Striking and mysterious, Keme rebuffs Tee from the moment they encounter each other.  Frustrated, yet inextricably drawn to him, she fights to keep her distance.  When Tee's life is put in jeopardy while white water rafting, Keme is forced to intervene and expose a secret the Blackfeet tribe has fought years to protect.  Being a twin, he carries the burden of the Gemini, an ancient ring possessing the healing power of the stars and the immortality of the Sky Country.  But being a Protector means he’s hunted and anyone he loves becomes bait.  Hundreds of miles away from Detroit, Tee finds she’s deeper in trouble than ever before, fighting for her life and a love she’s desperate to keep.

HELIACAL RISING fuses Blackfeet legend with classic Greek mythology to create a mystical story of a young girl discovering what makes her come alive.

In my twenties, I was a high school English teacher in New York City and Boston.  Now in my thirties, I’m a mountain mama living at 8,000 feet and trying to show my kids that having a dream and working hard at it go hand in hand.

First 250:

In the dark, his lips are hard to see as they move toward mine.  It’s always cloudy here.  Even at night.  When I was younger, it didn’t bother me.  Kids can play in the rain.  Now, it’s just depressing. 

His lips look like a full moon.  Round and pouted, dimpled around the edges.  Lips that are rumored to have kissed Meredith Salinger in the bathroom after she barfed at Winter Formal.  Ignore that thought. 

He just licked them.  Are my hands shaking? It’s not like this is my first time kissing a boy, but it’s warm, really warm.  Too warm for spring.  It makes my breath short.

Bottles clink around us.  His foot hits one, sending it rolling off the roof.  Don’t look down.  He might get distracted.  It smashes on the ground and shatters into pieces. 

“This has been cool,” Tim says, brushing my hair behind my ear.  His fingertips are wet and smell like beer.  Ignore that, too.

“Yea,” I say.  A door creeks.  Or maybe it’s the roof buckling under our weight.  I can’t focus with his mouth so close to mine. 

He’s breathing heavy.  In.  Out.  In.  Out.  Probably from the cigarettes.  My grandma died of lung cancer.  She sounded like Jabba the Hut every time she inhaled.  Whatever, cigarettes are sexy.  And taste good. 

“Maybe we can do this again,” he says. 

I nod in the dark, but before I can say anything, his lips touch mine.  They’re soft, coated in Chapstick for optimum moistness.  Butterflies flutter in my stomach, little wings tickling my insides, and I try not to giggle. 

Love Triangle Entry #18

Title: Lavender Boys

Genre: YA contemporary

Word count: 80,000

Query:

Dumbest thing to do when you meet the girl of your dreams?  Introduce her to the boy of HER dreams.

Adam has loved his best friend Brynna for years.  He’s brave enough to sit with her in the hospital after multiple heart surgeries, but too chicken to confess his true feelings.  When hot new quarterback Beckett makes a play for Brynna’s heart, Adam, the unwitting matchmaker, fears he’s missed his chance to be with her.

This is no love triangle. Brynna loves one of the boys. She is in love with the other. Adam and Beckett each sit on the fence, teetering back and forth between friendship and enmity.  

The fight to share Brynna’s life comes to a head on a snowy Ohio night. One boy would give up his life in order to save Brynna; the other would give up his future to be with her. This is the night Adam and Beckett must finally decide: Friends or enemies?  It is the night that changes everything.

LAVENDER BOYS alternates in points of view between main characters Adam and Beckett. Its humor and heartache are reminiscent of Gayle Forman's If I Stay and Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere.

This story is from my heart – literally. As a teen, I had cardiac surgery and experienced all the drama of life and love in the hospital. Now I am a nationwide in-demand speaker and writer for the American Heart Association and numerous non-profit organizations. I have been filmed for a reality pilot episode which will be presented to networks in the spring. I have recently been interviewed for a single episode spot on a nationally syndicated television show. I am a current SCBWI member.

First 250: 

ADAM

I love her.

But...

BECKETT

There it is.

Right in the middle of the bulletin board on the wall of Coach’s office.

In plain view.

The article.

The one about me.

I can’t help reading it every time I see it. Just like I do with every newspaper article about me.

ADAM 

But…she doesn’t love me.

Not the way I want her to love me.

It pains me to lie in bed with her.

So close – touching her, loving her.

Knowing we are just friends. Best of friends. Forever friends. Nothing but friends.

God she smells good.

Brynna rolls over and her long copper hair slides across my arm. I resist the urge to run my fingers through it. I could if I wanted. She doesn’t mind. She actually likes it when I play with her hair. But today, I can’t. There are days when I must control my urges. There are days when I can’t control my desires. On those days, I don’t want to touch her…because I WANT to touch her. Today is one of those days.

Brynna and I are lying on my bed.

Watching the worst supposed-to-be-scary-but-is-not-at-all-scary movie ever made.

Lying next to her is magnificent. It is also complete torture. Self-inflicted torture. Obviously, I am a masochist because I enjoy putting myself in these types of situations.  Here I am with her, so close I can feel her body parts against mine. Everyone knows being this close to a beautiful girl will eventually drive even the most restrained eighteen year old boy batshit crazy with hormonal desire. 

Love Triangle Entry #17

Title: BEFORE THE ODYSSEY

Genre: YA Romance/Mythological

Word count: 75,000

Query:

When Princess Helen of Sparta, the world’s most beautiful maiden, enters the marriage market, everyone’s interested, including the tactician Odysseus. Wily and confident, he’s certain he’ll beat the competition – until he unwittingly insults Penelope, Helen’s unassuming cousin. A private feud ensues, and as Odysseus strives to keep Penelope’s grudge from undermining his standing as Helen’s suitor, he discovers something entirely unexpected: a girl with a mind and spirit to match his own. Told from Penelope's and Odysseus' perspectives, Before the Odyssey brings mythological Greece to life as it unveils the beginnings of the love immortalized in Homer’s epic. 

250 words:

Antilochus was driving at a brisk clip. Too brisk, if you asked me. Every time we hit a rut on the alpine trail, I thought the chariot would shatter beneath our feet. Still, I could understand my friend's impatience. After two months of travel over sea and bandit-ridden roads, we were nearing our destination at last, and my heart pounded with anticipation as I spotted the final landmark.

"Swing right at the herm!" At my shout, Antilochus veered at the blocky crossroads marker. The horses clattered to the top of a steep rise, and I yelled, “There it is! Sparta, dead ahead!”

The sweating team halted, and we took in the sweeping view. Below the piney heights, songbirds winged over rustling olive groves, and bleating flocks grazed upon grassy slopes. Lower down, a river meandered through fields rippling with wheat and clover. And shining in the center of that valley like a gem in a crown was the city of Sparta.

Antilochus held out a hand. "Odysseus, you're a good friend and navigator, but it's every man for himself now."

I shook his hand firmly. We’d first met on a campaign my father sent me on shortly after I turned fifteen. Two years and countless escapades later, Antilochus and I were as close as brothers, ever partnering on one adventure after another. But this time, we'd be rivals. "Likewise,” I said. “So don't hold it against me when I win."

Antilochus snorted. "That's my line —"

Shouting broke out, cutting off his words.

Love Triangle Entry #16

Title: EXTRACTION

Genre: YA Dystopian/Sci Fi

Word count: 63,000

Query:

Kids are killed off at twenty on the planet Surface, but at sixteen, Clementine is one of the lucky ones picked to stay alive.

When she impresses the testers on Extraction Day, her prize is a transfer to the underground colony in the Core. Down there, she doesn't have to be afraid—not of hunger, officials, or the moon's poison. As an Extraction, Clementine receives training that raises her intelligence, loyalty, and Promise, an elusive quality that makes her worthy of safety. She's supposed to forget the way life was back in the Surface slums, but no matter how much better life is now, she can't forget Logan, the boy she loves but left behind. The boy who will die at twenty if she doesn't break him free.

When she learns Logan is in danger of a fate far worse than simple death, she must find a way to save him before the planet leaders take something else she can't afford to lose: her freedom of mind.

First 250:

When Logan arrives, he's holding a flower that could kill me.

I like to think I'm one of the braver kids. Sure, some days the whippings and beatings make me wanna curl up in a ball. When I dream of Logan getting carted off to quarantine, I wake drenched in sweat and trembling, but I master it pretty quick. I get over it. I have to be good at ignoring my fear, 'cause how else will I ever prove I deserve to escape it?

This flower is different.

My feet move, then my back slams into the windowsill of our shack.

I stare at the green stem as Logan twirls the flower, at the petals glinting silver like metal. It's been eleven years since I've seen this kind of petal. Silver aster flowers are supposed to be calming for the mind, but they do something else to me.

“What were you thinking?” My voice is hoarse.

Logan starts laughing.

I snatch a rock from the ground and throw it at his shoulder. Hard.

He ducks to avoid it. “Jeez, Clementine.” With a calloused hand, he tears the petals. Thin silver wrappings fall away, leaving behind the blackening blue of a common aster—a flower that will definitely not kill me. It's grimy, of course. Everything's covered in grime on the Surface.

Nothing can stop the heat from spreading through my cheeks. “So funny, Logan.”

He grins. “I didn't think you'd believe it.”

Love Triangle Entry #15

Title: KILLING KESSLER

Genre: YA sci fi

Word Count: 60,000 words

Query:

Sixteen-year-old Tabby Weber doesn’t want to murder anyone, but in Griffin Kessler’s case she’s willing to make an exception.

In the year 2018, nineteen-year-old science prodigy Griffin Kessler created a virus that nearly wiped out the human race. A decade later, survivors are imprisoned in concentration camps while brutal gangs roam the deserted cities. Tabby, her siblings, and her best friend, Murphy, live in hiding while they complete her father’s time machine. Their goal is simple: travel back in time and kill Kessler before he can finish his virus.

When Tabby and Murphy return to 2018, Tabby meets Kessler, who isn’t the monster she imagined at all. She soon finds he’s smart, sexy, and as desperate to protect the virus as she is. As Tabby falls for Kessler, Murphy confesses his own feelings for her. But Tabby’s love life is the least of her worries. With Murphy still determined to kill Kessler, she doesn’t know how to stop him, or if she even should.

  

First 250 words:

Our hiding spot is less than ten feet from the boy. An overhead floodlight blazes against the predawn sky, so bright I see the sweat falling from his wavy black hair and the clumps of dirt on his shovel. He has stubble on his jaw and a muscular chest and arms, but he looks young, maybe sixteen like me.

I glance at Leila. My sister’s full lips are stretched into a wide smile. I reach out to her with my mind. Forget it, Leila, I think. He’s locked in the Village.

We’re watching him through the witch hazel bushes outside the Village fence. The electric fence, twenty feet of razor wire crowned with another five feet of spiked coils, surrounds Pitman Air Force Base. The base was once the heart of Wexler Falls, until Alexander Zika’s henchmen transformed it into the concentration camp we know as the Village.

Leila’s expression doesn’t change, but I know she heard me. We can shut off our thoughts as easily as closing our eyes, but if she were blocking me out, I would feel it.

Seriously, it’s not like he’s going to break out of there and take you on a date, I add. Leila knows this, of course, but that won’t stop her from doing something stupid. She turned fourteen last month, and all she thinks about is boys. 

Love Triangle Entry #14

Title: Begging to Breathe

Genre: YA mystery

Word count: 50,000

Query:

When her archrival Julia winds up doing a literal dead-man's-float in the pool, Tessa Crichton must clear her name from the police--and from herself.

Ever since a near-drowning caused permanent brain damage, Tessa has had memory blanks, episodes where she wakes up and can't remember certain hours. She wishes her brain would erase yesterday's painful loss to Julia, but because weaknesses are never convenient, the hours around Julia's death are empty as Tessa' gold medal case from the day before.

All Tessa wants is to swim, to win, but with most of the suspicion on her, nationals is more stressful than ever. As the last day progresses, she takes it on herself not only to win all her races, but also to find the real killer. Sleuthing is harder than the 200 butterfly, though, and she finds herself with an entire team of suspects--including her boyfriend, her best friend, and her nemesis.

As Tessa investigates the deeper connections between Julia and her teammates, she finds every secret except the one she needs. But this digging is getting dangerous, and if Tessa doesn't clear her name soon, she might uncover another secret for which someone is willing to kill.

First 250:

I used to wonder what killing someone would be like. But then, I used to wonder about a lot of things. For a while, I wondered about being a sixteen-year-old college freshman. About whether boys really were as sexy as the movies made them seem. About living on shitty cafeteria food.

But mostly I wondered about killing someone.

I pictured it in so many different ways—an axe splitting the skull with blood gushing like a chocolate fountain onto my shoes. A rope squeezed tightly around a neck as limbs twitched around me. Even the quiet ways, like a meal where the mouth froths before the poison registers. Horror in the eyes. Accusation. Finally, grudging admiration. Because I won.

It happened differently.

And I didn’t like it half as much as I wanted to.

Chapter 1:

It’s six AM, and I’m crawling out of bed. The junior next to me doesn’t stir, even though I’m not trying to be quiet. After two seasons together, sharing hotel rooms, she’s pretty used to weird sleeping habits. Especially mine.

Swimsuit. Cap. Goggles. Check, check, check. Water bottle and power bar. I step into a pair of way-too-tiny shorts and pretend I don’t know that half my ass is falling out. Big baggy sweatshirt on top, and suddenly I’m more frump than tramp.

Love Triangle Entry #13

Title: THE NIGHT WE SAID YES

Genre: YA contemporary romance

Word count: 51,000

Query:

Ella Rhodes had a plan. A really good plan. Get over the ex-boyfriend who dumped her in the most ridiculous way ever. Graduate high school without any more distractions. Move away from boring Orlando where she’s lived her entire life. But Matt – the bespectacled bass player who just moved into town? Yeah, Matt was definitely not part of the plan. Neither was attending a party that was crashed by the cops within moments of their arrival. Neither was spending an entire night saying yes to every ridiculous thing they could come up with, including (but not limited to) breaking and entering, going partially-clothed skinny dipping, and playing the most awesome rock show ever.  

But here’s the thing – sweet, thoughtful, kind Matt, who got Ella to get over one of her biggest fears, moved away, leaving her alone and completely derailed from her plan. Her really good plan. So when he shows up a year later looking to reconnect, and, in a way, reenact the original night that brought them together, she finds herself saying yes. Because when fate hands you a second chance, you just have to grab it, right? But is Ella ready to accept Matt back into her life just as she started to tape together a new future?

Told in alternating chapters that chronicle the night Ella and Matt first met and the night they reunite, THE NIGHT WE SAID YES is a love story that questions if second chances are possible and if the future is something we can design.  

I’m a librarian by day, young adult reader and writer by night. I’ve published numerous freelance articles in local publications, such as the Orlando Sentinel and Florida Libraries. For two years I was a full-time staff writer and Assistant Managing Editor for Florida Monthlymagazine, where, along with writing articles, I co-wrote and edited a book chronicling the Mariel Boatlift. 

First 250:

NOW

Meg is in front of my house in 10 minutes and 27 seconds.

            

“You’re late,” I joke, sinking into her car’s leather seats.

            

“Shut up,” she smiles. “You ready?”

            

“I am,” I answer, somewhat honestly.

“It’ll be fun, I promise.” Her blonde hair is tossed over her shoulder, perfectly flipped as if she styled it to stay there.  She knows I’m not much of a partier, so she’s clearly trying to be as enthusiastic about this as possible. Of course it’s working.

“I just hope there’s a bounce house again,” I murmur, crossing my arms over my chest. She grins, knowing she won, and pulls the car out of the driveway. I watch the streetlights pass the car and illuminate our drive, guiding our path. It’s silent out, a normal Friday night. Most families are tucked away asleep, but we’re just heading out, ready to start our night. As we approach UCF, the quiet streets get louder, more crowded. Cars honk, voices yell. College students aching to stretch their legs – and livers – are out in full swing.

We were in the area just a week earlier for our high school graduation. Our graduating class was so large the ceremony had to be hosted at the university’s basketball arena. It was kind of neat going there, actually – more adult-feeling than the cafeteria, at least. As we sat waiting for our names to be called, many of my classmates looked around, taking in their future campus, Meg included. I, on the other hand, had nothing to get attached to; I’m moving four hours north to attend Florida State University.

Love Triangle Entry #12

Title: ONE

Genre: YA Science Fiction

Word count: 77,000 

Query:

Sixteen-year-old Merrin Grey can float, but she can’t make herself fly. When almost everyone else is a Super, with at least two powers, or a Normal, with none, being a One is the worst kind of in-between.

All Merrin wants to do is land an internship at the Supers’ Biotech Hub, where she might finally figure out how to fix herself. But when she meets Elias VanDyne, son of the Vice President of the Hub – and another One – all of her plans fly out the window. Literally. When the two of them touch their Ones combine to make them fly, and when they’re not soaring over the Nebraska cornfields, they’re busy falling for each other.

When Elias disappears, leaving only a panicked note, Merrin knows exactly where he’s been taken. The Hub’s been conducting experiments on him since he was a little kid, and now it’s up to her to save him. But if she chooses to break into the Hub to save the boy who helps her soar, she’ll have to abandon her dreams of ever flying solo – of ever being more than a One.

First 250: 

Dad slows the car as Normal High - Nelson High, I remind myself - comes into view. It's about a third of the size of Superhero High, and its face is shot through with mossy cracks, dull with years of dirt they didn't bother to power wash before the first day. I stare at it, but I can feel my dad's eyes on me from the driver's seat. 


“Dad.” I pat his knee, a little awkwardly. “I’m just going to high school. A different one, but still just school. I’ll be fine. Maybe better. You know…than I was.” I say, trying to make my voice sound like I believe a word of what I said.

Dad looks at me. He doesn’t believe it, but he’s going to pretend he does.


I clear my throat. “You could have let me drive myself.”


“What if you didn’t get a pass? Or couldn’t find a spot? Best to figure out the lay of the land...”


“The lay of the land” is one of the phrases Dad uses when he’s worried.  To be honest, I’m worried myself.

It’s been ten years since my first power - going weightless - showed up. Seven years since Mom and Dad started to worry, in whispered voices, that I’d never get a Second, like the other kids. Only one year since I’d pretty masterfully failed at Superhero High. One year since we all knew I was only going to float instead of learning to fly – knew I was always only going to be a One.

Love Triangle Entry #11

Title: THE DEVINE

Genre: YA paranormal romance

Word count: 100,000 

Query: 

For sixteen-year-old Brynn Hartwel prophetic dreams are like living in Cloverdale, painful, annoying and there is no way to get around it. They started when she was six, got worse after her father’s death and became a secret when her mother forced a psychiatrist on her. Now with junior year on the horizon Brynn knows she is two years closer to escaping Cloverdale and hopefully leaving all traces of her dreams behind.

Then all hell breaks loose.

Her ex-best friend is found murdered and due to another one of her prophetic dreams, Brynn knows she’s next. But the killer isn’t your average, small town sociopath. He’s part of an ancient society of demigods, has gone rogue and is wickedly determined on seeing Brynn dead.

But he isn’t her biggest problem. Griffin is. With his pouty lips and devilish charm, Brynn is suddenly fates fiercest opponent and will do anything to stay alive. Lucky for her Griffin has a secret of his own and everything from Brynn’s dreams to her father’s death is connected to Griffin and The Society of The Devine. A society created of demigods, a society created to rule man in secrecy and a society in which Brynn had been purposely hidden from till now.

Brynn was born a Devine oracle just like her father. But he refused to have her torn from her family to live a life dedicated to The Society so he made a deal with the original Devine to hide her true identity.

But nothing stays hidden forever. A rival group of demigods is after her and she is unsure if they want her dead or as one of their own and she must put her faith in three young Devine warriors sent to protect her.

As the secrets, lies and betrayals pile up no one is safe and not even a Devine oracle could predict that the true threat to The Society is the one person they are trying to protect, Brynn.

First 250: 

If I had known I was going to die before my seventeenth birthday, I would have definitely been more reckless. Like ran off with some hot college guy to the city for the weekend or chopped off all my hair for once. Or simply just stopped wasting my time planning my future. But it was too late for a rebellious weekend or a new hairstyle. And it was too late to live for the moment. My moment was gone. He was hiding in my room waiting to kill me just like my dream predicted and there was nothing I could do to change it. But I refused to make it easy for him. I wanted to guarantee the news report read ‘girl put up a fight’. I would not go out looking pathetic.

I scanned my nightstand for some type of weapon but a furry pillow, a Sixteen Candles DVD and eyelash curler weren’t going to cut it. Why was I so girly? I needed a baseball bat or one of those Taser thingies. I slid the eyelash curler in my palm and stepped closer to the hallway slipping on the trail of water my hair left on the wood floor. If my damn phone hadn’t been ringing I wouldn’t have stormed in my room pinning myself between my bed and him. An amateur move for someone who knew they were fated to be killed.

Love Triangle Entry #10

Title: LAST YEAR'S MISTAKE

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Word Count: 63,000

Query:

  

Seventeen year old Kelsey Crawford has almost no regrets about her family leaving the crappy Connecticut town she grew up in for beautiful, historical Newport, Rhode Island. No regrets except one – falling in love with her best friend David, and then abandoning him.

Kelsey's spent the last year constructing a new life to go with her new town, including cozying up to a new boyfriend who’s the total package of yummy. The last thing she wants to think about is the perfect storm of health problems that nearly sent her off the deep end sophomore year. Or the rumors that swirled out of control. Or, oh yeah, the fact that she hasn't spoken to David since that time they kissed. It’s all behind her now – until David is standing in the hall on the first day of school.

When Kelsey sees David, it isn’t only the bad memories that come rushing back. She can’t ignore the nagging feeling that something’s been missing from her perfect life, something more than the friend she left behind. Because the more time she and David spend together, the more she realizes it’s not just his friendship she misses. Either she can give in to her feelings and ruin everything she’s worked so hard to create – or let David go, and risk repeating last year’s mistake.

First 250:

If I had to see a ghost, I guess the first day of school was as good a time as any.

Not that he was really a ghost, but he might as well have been. I’d buried him with a chapter of my life that I’d closed the book on long ago. Or so I thought.

The first day of my senior year of high school started off normal enough. My mother made pancakes for my sister and me, the same as she did every first day of school.

“Problem, Kelsey?” Miranda asked as she caught me eyeing her plate.

“Want some pancakes with your butter and syrup?” I narrowed my eyes as the shimmery, sun kissed glow on her freckled cheeks distracted me from the pool of toxic waste in her dish. “Are you wearing my bronzer?”

Miranda looked down and giggled.

“How many times have I told you to quit touching my stuff?”

She stuck her tongue out at me, then eyed the band-aid wrapped around my pointer finger. 

“What’d you do to your finger?”

“Burned it on my flat iron. Now go put my bronzer back in my room.”

She scrunched up her nose and made her voice sour and prissy. “Ooh, Kelsey’s so great because she uses a flat iron and bronzer now.”

It took everything I had not to lunge across the table and yank her forever-disheveled, honey colored hair. It was the exact same color mine had been before I’d kicked it up a notch with some platinum blonde highlights. Never, though, had I let mine look like a tornado had taken up residence on my head.

Love Triangle Entry #9

Title: Time Bound

Genre: YA Paranormal Fantasy

Word Count: 70,000

Query:

If sixteen-year-old Holly Takada had known spending the summer in Japan would drop her right into the middle of a real-life-game of Dungeons and Dragons, she might have packed differently.

Holly expects her annual visit to her grandmother to be just another summer of boredom and sushi - until she meets local boy Tamashi, whose threadbare clothes and strange accent hide a mysterious past.  When Tamashi saves Holly from thugs at the market where he works, she jumps at the chance to get closer to him, hoping to unearth his secrets, and maybe a kiss or two. But none of the crazy plotlines in her favorite video games prepare her for what she discovers.

Tamashi isn’t human.

He’s a Time Dragon - the last of an ancient breed of dragons created to watch over Japan. But after being betrayed by the woman he loved, he’s been trapped in the body of a seventeen-year-old human boy for the last five hundred years. Even worse, the wizard who captured him is close to unlocking Tamashi’s powers – and he intends to use them to rewrite time. If Tamashi and Holly can’t stop him from completing his terrible vision of the future, he will erase their very existence from history. Too bad real life doesn’t have a Reload button, because failing now means Game Over.

TIME BOUND is told in three points of view, that spans several centuries of Japanese history. I like to think of it as Hourglass meets Silver Phoenix.

I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and have spent the last several years working as a Technical Writer and Marketing Specialist.

First 250:

There was nothing quite like the smell of fish to set the mood for a first date.

Holly stood at the edge of the farmer’s market and wrinkled her nose. Usually the scent of yuzu and fresh chestnuts spiced the air, but today was Wednesday. Fish day.

Not exactly the day she would have chosen to meet up with her crush, but evidently guys either didn’t mind the smell or didn’t pay attention to that sort of thing. She hitched up her ponytail and started to weave past tables covered with ice and slimy octopus. Fish mouths gaped at her, full of razor sharp teeth, but it was nothing compared to the looks some of the stooped old vendors shot her. They gawked as she passed, their quick judgment of her easy to read in their drawn brows and cold eyes.

Despite being half-Japanese, she was still an outsider. Though they were too polite to say anything, she knew what they were thinking. Hafu. Hapa. Half-breed. And now that she was back in Japan for another summer, she had to get used to the place all over again. It always felt so foreign, so alien to return, like stepping off a spinning merry-go-round and trying to stay upright. And the older she got, the longer she took to regain her balance.

“Buy a kimono!” one of the vendors shouted at her in Japanese. Holly shook her head and kept moving, skirting around tables full of oddly shaped vegetables.