CAGI Finalist #35

Title: STITCHES OF TRUTH

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance

Word Count: 67,000 words

Query:

Being confronted by her three boyfriends is the last thing Dena Krester expects on her seventeenth birthday.

Truth is, she used to be friendless. Uprooted almost yearly by career-obsessed parents, she was shy and introverted, and she spent all of her time making art quilts, dreaming of the Art of the Nation Scholarship, and hanging out with her nanny. So when three boys—Liam, Wes, and Keith—befriend her, Dena is over the moon with all of the attention, until the boys want more.

Dena can’t bear the thought of being a loner again, so she doesn't say no. Fearing rejection, she weaves a web of lies to keep these relationships secret, but her tireless effort of keeping everyone happy eclipses all her priorities, to include her looming scholarship deadline. When Dena falls in love with straight-laced Keith, her guilty conscience rips her carefully crafted plans at the seams. And when Keith discovers the truth, she realizes that this time, her penchant for stitching things back together might not fix the mess she’s made. She risks losing everything—her first love, her art, and who she thought she was—unless she finds a way to thread the strands of her life back together.

First 250:

I’m a breath away from scattering this small mountain of torn paper napkins, tempted to cover our table with white fiber. It would be so easy; even a quiet puff could give flight to these tiny squares.

Instead, I stick my finger in the mound, and swirl a crater into it.

“Ready for your surprise?” Keith asks from across the table, his grey-blue eyes expressionless.

I hesitate, searching his poker face for the right answer. I force a smile as the anxiety brewing in my belly slithers up and squeezes my vocal chords. I clear my throat and will a steady voice. “Aw, you didn’t have to get me anything.”

His lips press into a thin line and he goes mute once again. He palms his coffee cup with both hands, and in his silence, I reach for another napkin from the dispenser.

Today is supposed to be my day, my seventeenth birthday. I’m in the most beautiful café in the City with my gorgeous boyfriend waiting for some epic present to come through the door.

But I can’t enjoy it, not the way I should be. The sun’s rays beating through the stained glass windows are uncomfortably hot on my temples; the boy band coming through the surround sound is annoying at best. And with Keith so sketchy, I can’t help but think—oh God no, please—that it’s because of me.

I hear frantic beeps and look up to find that it’s Keith texting.  

CAGI Finalist #34

TITLE: EYRE HOUSE

GENRE: YA CONTEMPORARY

WORD COUNT: 62,000

Query:

Eyre House is a YA gothic contemporary that recasts Jane Eyre in a sleepy southern island town, complete with all the ghost stories.

All seventeen-year-old Evan Richardson wants out of his summer is an escape from the foster system that’s run his life. A job at Eyre House on quiet Edisto Island, SC, seems like the perfect solution. But the plantation-turned-bed-and-breakfast has a lot more to offer than freedom and employment. The island is full of ghost stories, and Eyre House seems to have more than its fair share of secret passages and things that go bump in the night. The tough part is telling what's ghost, and what's story.

Ginny, whose family has owned Eyre House since before the Civil War, seems like the perfect person to help him figure it all out. She’s sexy, confident...and, as the owner's daughter, completely off limits. Except that Ginny's way more interested in distracting Evan than in ghost hunting, especially when the ghosts he’s uncovering are hers. Still, Ginny is hard to resist – and Evan's not sure he really wants to. But when he wakes in the night to the heat of a burning bed, Evan knows the ghosts must be after him. And he’s pretty sure that Ginnny is hiding something behind those honey-gold eyes.

Worse, the ghosts are growing more and more dangerous. When Ginny’s ex-boyfriend is found dead in the Eyre House pool, Evan knows he’s got two choices: figure out what’s going on, or become the next ghost to haunt Ginny Eyre.

First 250:

I swore under my breath for about the millionth time since leaving Charleston, the blasting staccato of rain against my helmet not quite drowning out the deep rumble of my bike’s engine. Lightning highlighted the rural road ahead of me, and the marshes that surrounded it. It was hard to believe it wasn’t even six yet. The clouds rolling up the coast were dark as hell. Even with the right gear, I was cold, wet, and tired.

I had wanted to leave early, and make Eyre House by midafternoon. The Gages had never given a damn about me, but they sure as hell had done their best to keep me from leaving today. They’d delayed me until just before the storm hit, leaving me to make what should have been an easy ride in a torrential downpour.

Personally, I suspected the loss of my foster payment was to blame. Fucking assholes.

So much for arriving early to make a good impression. Instead, I’d be lucky to get there before dinner, and all bets for being presentable were off. I urged my bike faster and swore under my breath again. At least the road was empty. Seemed I was the only one stupid enough to be out in this weather.

Lightning cut the sky again, and my headlight glinted off a sign that announced the start of the McKinley Washington, Jr. Bridge. Once I crossed the mile-long stretch of concrete, I’d officially be on Edisto Island. I’d be free. No more foster families, no more foster system.

CAGI Finalist #33

Title: FOREVER FRIDAY

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Word Count: 85,000

Query:

Friday Anderson’s life is over. She just doesn’t know it yet.

Seventeen-year-old Friday wakes up from a car accident to find her cancer mysteriously cured. Everyone calls it a miracle, but now that her mother is gone and she’s being forced to move to a tiny Montana town, it feels way more like a curse. Her only hope of moving on is earning enough money for college, so when an ad appears in the paper for a job assisting a rock band, Friday jumps at the opportunity.

Hanging out with the gorgeous guitarist certainly beats baling hay, but there’s something odd about the four young musicians, who spend more time bickering than practicing. When Friday overhears them discussing a plan to move to New York -- and take Friday with them -- she finally confronts the band members and learns the truth: they are Athanatos, immortals trapped somewhere between life and death. Not only is Friday one of them, she’s the only immortal who can kill another, making her the one weapon capable of ending the world’s oldest blood feud.

Now Friday has a choice: confront the people hunting her down and risk the lives of the mortals she loves, or run and leave anything resembling a normal life behind. Between magic rings, ancient curses, and the fact that Friday’s going to have to live with the same haircut for the rest of her life, it’s definitely going to take some time getting used to this whole “undead” thing.

Forever should just about do it.

First 250:

Un milagro, they called me. A miracle. I heard the nurses whisper it to each other as they passed my hospital room. I saw it on the news for three days before my story was overshadowed by celebrity gossip and political scandals. And it was the first thing the Chilean doctor said to me when my scan results came back normal.

But I didn’t believe in miracles.

“Good morning, señorita,” the nurse said as she pulled back the curtains. “You are going home today, no?”

           

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure what “home” meant anymore.

“Muy bien. The doctor will be in to release you soon.”

           

It had already been a week since the accident, but I still felt like if I tried hard enough I could wake myself up from this nightmare. Surely the real me was sitting in a café in Paris, the place I’d dreamed of going since I was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor over a year ago. But instead of sending Mom and me to France, the wish foundation had called six weeks ago to tell me I’d been granted an all-expenses-paid vacation to Chile. Chile.

My mom said it must have been some kind of computer mix-up, or maybe a trip to Chile had just been more affordable than Paris, and that I shouldn’t complain about a free vacation. But it was literally my dying wish. You’d think they could at least get the country right.

CAGI Finalist #32

Title: OF ICE AND ASHES 

Genre: YA fantasy

Word Count: 76,000

Query:

Sixteen-year-old Wren is Tainted.

Unlike the other survivors of a toxic explosion, Wren’s body isn’t disfigured by hideous black spider web scars. Her skin is pale and perfect—and dangerous. Her icy touch causes excruciating pain for everyone she touches, but her flawless skin is the reason she wasn’t banished with the other Tainted. Still, she’d love to walk through her town without inducing the usual cringes and gasps of fear.

When a town leader declares that the Tainted are diseased and demands the normal townspeople purge them, Wren barely escapes to search for them. What she finds are not the battered people she expected. They are knife-wielding, eager for a fight, and welcome Wren into their hidden home with scarred arms. Then Wren meets Asher, a normal boy whose aid has kept the Tainted alive since the explosion. If she ignores his exasperating confidence and knack for getting under her skin, she’s almost eager to have him around.

But the battle between the Tainted and the townspeople is ballooning out of control. As the fires of slaughtered Tainted bodies burn at night, and more of her new friends leave to save the others, Wren realizes her new life could crumble into the ashes. Unless she can do something she never wanted to: utilize her skin’s terrible power and fight back.

First 250:

Three layers of hand-knit sweaters and my gloves protected my skin. I tweaked the silk over my wrists, ensuring that no portion of my flesh was exposed.

“You’re too cautious, honey,” Jolie said. Her soft, clumsy hand pinned my mother’s old jade brooch to my outermost sweater. “Everyone knows what will happen if they touch you.”

“Accidents happen,” I said. Actually, an accident hadn’t happened in years thanks to my layering, but I didn’t dare risk it. It’s not as though I could overheat, anyway.

I saw Jolie’s lips purse in the silver-framed mirror by my bed. Her full face appeared weary from a morning volunteering in the kitchen. One frizzy knot of hair stuck out of her brittle blonde bun. She’d been my caretaker for a decade, yet I didn’t think I’d ever seen her hair out of that style.

I smiled, contemplating how much trouble I’d get in for snatching the elastic away. Since Jolie was the only person who could touch me without any painful consequence, she’d probably chase me down.

My grin was all it took to wipe the pout from her expression. Simple, hair-brained Jolie. Her Scar never altered her cheerful view on life.

Her fingers prodded against the back of my neck as she adjusted the sweaters. I experienced no heat, no cold. Just the pressure of her touch on my skin.

Neither of us had felt temperature for ten years.