St. Martin’s New Adult Contest
TEMPTED by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
Attention, writers! St. Martin’s Press is holding a contest for submissions. Yes, a contest hosted by yours truly to find books to publish. We are actively looking for great, new, cutting edge fiction with protagonists who are slightly older than YA and can appeal to an adult audience. Since twenty-somethings are devouring YA, St. Martin’s Press is seeking fiction similar to YA that can be published and marketed as adult—a sort of an “older YA” or “new adult.”
The contest begins today on Monday, November 9 and ends Friday, November 20, 2009. Submissions will be taken online and read by JJ of the St. Martin ‘s Press editorial department and Georgia McBride, Founder and Host of #YAlitchat!
There are prizes! The top three submissions—1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, if you will—will receive a copy of TEMPTED by P.C. and Kristin Cast. There may be multiple winners of this contest, but a free book will go to the three I find the most interesting/appropriate for what we are looking for.
The Rules
- One submission per author.
- Fiction applicable to older teens and twentysomethings, please. For guidelines, the protagonist should be 18 or older, but 20s are preferred.
- All works must be complete, edited, proofed and ready for submission upon request.
- Submission must include author first name, email address, 2-3 sentence hook/pitch and first paragraph of story ONLY. Any additional content will be discarded.
How It Works
Submissions are reviewed by the Editorial Department at St. Martin ‘s Press and Georgia McBride, Founder and Host of #Yalitchat. Based on the criteria defined by St. Martin’s Press; submissions are assessed and if we are interested in seeing more, authors are contacted via the email provided in the submission and a partial (first 50 pages) of your manuscript will be requested.
Your manuscript should be edited, proofed and ready for submission. If the editorial team at St. Martin ‘s Press would like to see more of your manuscript after reading your partial, they will request the remainder of your manuscript. Please make sure that your manuscript is properly formatted, spell-checked and ready to go.
Winners
Winners in this “contest” are those who submit and are asked to have their manuscript submitted for consideration by St. Martin ‘s Press. Ideally, a book deal would come of it, but we have no guarantees. The goal is to give as many #Yalitchat writers an opportunity to have their work considered.
Disclaimer: St. Martin’s Press does not guarantee to publish the material requested and cannot be held liable for a book published through St. Martin’s Press with similar content to any submission from the “New Adult” Contest sponsored by #YAlitchat.
Comment here to enter. Good luck!
Title: DISAPPEARING JACKY
Pitch: Two teenage girls, Elizabeth and Jacky share an intimate friendship that, one night, turns into a sexual tragedy. Seven years later, at age 19, Elizabeth reaches through time for an understanding of what really happened in the woods on the night that her beloved friend Jacky disappeared.
First paragraph: Elizabeth wanders out of her muted cage with the beige rug, plaid curtains, and one tattered poster of safari animals—fellow captives watching glassy-eyed from ivory walls.
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Title: Sarah and Samael: Gifted
Pitch: Sarah is one of many people Gifted with psychic ability, but that doesn’t make being branded a freak by her non-Gifted peers any easier. Attending a ball to meet other Gifted seems like a wonderful idea, especially when she meets handsome Michael—until mindless, marauding vampires show up and start killing people. Somewhere in-between kissing Michael and dodging death, Sarah must decide what to do with her life. Will she let the way people treat her break her spirit, or will she find the strength to take control?
First Paragraph: Sarah Aaronson had been told the Shiloh Imperial Hotel was lavish. Now, entering the hotel’s august Event Hall for the first time, she realized that description was ill fitting. It needed some whole new word to describe its splendor.
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PITCH: 18 year old pregnant patient at Serenity Rehab Center, Laci Knot, starts reliving her last four years of her life through her writing in order to figure out what led to catatonic state. Divided by the school years: freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years, Laci’s second personality, Jane, explains how a split personality and a self-induced amnesia in ninth grade led to her being swept away by a tornado on the day of her high school graduation. When she finds out that the amnesia and second-personality (Jane) were all attempts to not just forget, but replace, an ex-boyfriend, she begs the question: What was terrible enough to make it happen?
1st PARAGRAPH: Past the reflecting glass windows, iron bridges, and not-so-subtle suburbs is Serenity Rehab Center. Sitting forty-five minutes away from civilization with twelve acres to its name, Serenity is the largest center in the state and ranks top ten in the nation. The illnesses treated at Serenity are standard: drug and alcohol addiction, behavior issues, trauma, anorexia/bulimia, overweight, to name a few. If an illness isn’t listed, it is created. If the psychiatrist doesn’t fit the specialty, the specialty is molded to fit the psychiatrist. No one is turned down so as long as they can pay. The shiny brochure with happy faces says that this is because Serenity aims to evoke a feeling of importance and worth on their patients. The only worth their actually interested in, however, is in the bank.
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Title: Local Band
Pitch: Pete Chadwick dedicated his post-college days to rock star dreams, and after last night’s gig, radio legend Roland Hamilton’s once-in-a-lifetime offer put those dreams within reach. Forget the naysayers and the ex-girlfriend who told him to grow up, Pete’s ready to say goodbye day job, hello fame and fortune. But the music business is more complicated than three chords and the truth, and Pete must soon decide between selling out for success or trading his guitar for the “real world.”
First Paragraph: You know that sinking feeling that comes when you realize something big happened last night but you didn’t know what the hell it was? That harsh reality was today’s morning greeting. I awoke in bed, left arm buried under a snoring and very naked brunette, the familiar nasty funk of stale beer tickling my senses—and not in a good way. This kind of stuff never happened with Diana, not during our college years and certainly not in our final miserable days together. She had too much of that whole responsible professional thing in her, even at her most punk rock. I gave myself a second to silently toast new experiences, then set out to piece together what would surely be another banner day in the life of Pete Chadwick.
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PITCH: Amelia van den Broek is a middle class Victorian girl with an extraordinary power. Drawn to part the veil after her own otherworldly sending, and moved by her curious attraction to a young man who seems to come and go as if made of mist, Amelia gives herself over to the power she finds in giving prophecies. But when she speaks of tragedy that comes to pass, those around her begin to wonder if she’s not the seer of dark portents- but the cause of them.
First Paragraph:
I woke in Oakhaven, entirely ruined. The ballad notes of a quadrille lingered on my skin, remnants of a chaine anglaise danced only in slumber. I heard a velvet voice against my cheek, and I burned in the dark, dreaming light of his eyes. Morning had come, its watery brightness stealing shadows from the corners, but still I swayed. Perhaps this once, I could find my visions- my awful, eerie gift- without the fires of sunset. Perhaps this once, I could abandon the vespers and go there on my own. To the place where I saw more than eyes could see. Where I knew more than minds could know.
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THE VAGABONDS (contemporary story with a sci-fi twist)
Pitch: For Alec and Malik, the mission was straightforward enough; Observe and Report. Unfortunately for them, the subjects were anything but simple. From Tokyo to Dublin, Cairo to Rome, eighteen-year-old identical twins Nadia and Keira can travel the world in less time than it takes the average person to spell twitter. With a world of destinations to choose from, the girls are forced to flee when they discover they’re being stalked by a secret, ancient society that once had this same gift, but abused and lost it; now this group seeks to corrupt in order to destroy.
First Paragraph: The two young men stood at attention in the large room. The light from the windows was practically blinding them, but that is how it was supposed to be. Except for their clothes, there were no other colors visible in the room; no yellows, blues, greens or purples. No colors, no tricks, no illusions. There was no darkness, only light, and it was strong. Children can tell the difference between light and darkness as soon as they enter the world. Grown-ups forget the disparity because they see too much of both. Although these two were no longer children, they had not forgotten the distinction.
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Pitch:Clara’s story takes place in Hudson Bluffs, a quaint, quiet town in the beautiful Hudson Valley, NY. After earning her Veterinary degree, family tragedy forces Dr. Clara Morgan to return home, (a dilapidated 200yr. old farmhouse) and take care of her special needs identical twin sister. She begins to work in the town’s only Veterinary hospital – For a man she silently despises.
Dr. Alan Westin III has a secret, and Clara, together with her best friends, her clairvoyant twin sister, and the help of a few spirits (human and animal alike), uncovers animal cruelty in its worst form, abusing Dogs for sick thrills and huge capital gain.
!st Para:At Sixteen life was one amazing adventure after another. The thing I remember I loved most was the thought of freedom. Pure and unadulterated, I felt the world was mine to explore.
The first time I got to drive a car solo I didn’t head for my boyfriend’s house or even to my best friend’s. With the wind in my hair and my dad’s black Lab, Tucker, riding shotgun, I headed straight to our local village veterinarian. I wanted to inform him I finally had my driver’s license and could start work immediately.
Note:story begins at 16, but her character throughout is about 30.
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Pitch: Jordan Waycroft is excited to be going into the family business, which is a good thing since it’s not like he has a choice. When your family business is tied to a genetic gift, and you’ve inherited that gift, you can like it or suck it up – but either way, you’re going to be doing the job. The Waycrofts are Sin Eaters; they eat the sins of dying people to allow them to pass over unburdened.
First Paragraph: The old man led the way, moving between dusty tables filled with too many things – pictures commemorating the intersection of family to vacation spot, cheap knick-knacks, and ashtrays filled to overflowing with foul smelling butts. I doubt that we’d be here, if it weren’t for the cigarettes, Jordan thought as he followed his grandfather.
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PHOENIX RISING:
Pitch:
ALEC FARLEY is a fire starter and telekinetic trained since birth to be a living weapon by the Resource, a shadowy anti-terrorist organization. BETH NAKAMORA is a psychologist with a latent telepathic talent who is hired by the Resource to help Alec learn to work well with outsiders.
Beth realizes that Alec needs rescuing, not counseling, and
she kidnaps him but her telepathy flares and she turns his powers off, leaving Beth terrified of her abilities, Alec incensed with his would-be rescuer and the Resource after them both.
Paragraph:
Beth Nakamora settled back into the chair and put her note pad on her lap. She debated sliding forward to perch on the edge of the cushions but decided that would make her appear too eager. She suspected that her new client would come in literally breathing fire. Better to settle in and let whatever storm was brewing wash over her before trying to get
through to him.
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Pitch for The Seascape Summers: Rory’s first summer home from college is not turning out as she envisioned, despite being promoted to manager of the Salty Breeze, the best clothes shop on the island. Her relationship with Eli, her best friend, feels strained and sandy; her nemesis, Georgia, continues to throw her perfect life in her face; the usually-dependable Allie is entirely too distracted by a new girl in the café next door; and merchandise and money keep disappearing from the Salty Breeze. This would all be manageable, though, if only someone wasn’t posting everyone’s secrets on Seascape’s newest gossip blog.
Chapter 1:
“If I have to answer one more question about college, I will scream.” Rory narrows her eyes against the sharp sun angling in from the front windows and tries to make out the figure approaching the Salty Breeze. It’s not until the Seashell Pink scoopneck tee with the trademark sailboat insignia comes into view that she exhales in relief. It’s just Dana, the store manager, carrying her lunch (probably fish and chips with extra lemon, just like she’s eaten most days over the past five summers), tucked into a steaming Styrofoam container to protect it from the rough winds blowing up from the bay.
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Sylvia’s Secret
Love Story for a new generation. Sylvia and Vinny are college sweet hearts en route for marriage but then a terrible accident changes everything. Secrets, betrayal, and dysfunctional families make for this epic love story.
Chapter 1
Orientation
Sylvia sat on the steps of Atwood Hall. She sipped from a can of soda. The vending machine in the basement of her dorm gave her a choice of Dr. Pepper or Fresca, and not wanting to appear as the nerd she knew she was, she chose the much more sexier sounding Dr. Pepper.
Her roommate, Rory, puffed on a Clove cigarette and complained about her boyfriend back at home in California: “Rob has the biggest dick.” She flicked the tiny ash that formed on the end of her cigarette. “I think I need someone with a smaller dick. Sometimes I can feel him hitting my uterus.”
Wendy, one of the other girls she and Rory met at orientation that morning, replied, “I don’t know. I think I sort of like the whole sex-pain thing. Maybe that’s why I got my clit pierced.” Wendy was from New York City and had already been to rehab twice.
The girls were talking, but not really to each other. It was a combination of Shakespearean monologue and the confession booth on The Real World. Sylvia wasn’t sure if she fit in. She had on pale yellow jeans and a black sleeveless shirt with a pair of sandals, a sharp contrast to Rory in her Daisy Dukes and Wendy with her piercings. Plus, she had very little to add to this sort of conversation. While she wasn’t a virgin, she certainly never had anyone hit her uterus. She was particularly out of the loop when Rory launched into masturbation and vibrator experiences.
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Title: Dreamvision
Pitch: In this paranormal thriller, Abigail Wood begins to experience dreamvisions, which are horrific premonitions envisioned in the mind during sleep that become reality. As accidents she dreams about occur in her hometown and to those she cares about, she finds herself frequently racing against time to save the lives of those her dreams target. When she tries to discover why this is happening to her, she realizes that someone she trusts may be the cause of this chaos in her life.
First Paragraph: Have you ever dreamt about an event that happened to become reality soon after? How often has this happened? Once? Twice? How about every time you had a dream? No? Well, this happened to me. The reason I am telling you this story is because it may happen to you. Or to someone around you. And if it does, no one can help. Only that person can help themselves.
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Title:
THE DARKENING
Pitch:
Inspired by the Celtic/Scandinavian ballad known as “Twa Sisters” and set in an Iron-Age world of myth and legend, this Austen-meets-Poe gothic fantasy offers a chilling new take on the mortal-wooed-by-faery tradition. Here, the King of Corms wants eighteen-year old Maura, the ‘Flower of the Uplands,’ for more than just passion and pleasure. He needs her to commit murder.
First Paragraph:
Dawn should have dyed the sky a half-hour ago. Should have transfigured the hills of Ailldùn and flushed rose the colorless remnant of night. Should have dissolved the haunting, the thing she ran to forget, well before she came within sight of the orchard at the base of the hillfort rise.
But dawn had not come.
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Title: GLIMMER
Pitch:
When Quinn Cavanagh enters the Smithfield University Forensic Investigation program—the toughest CSI program in the country—she discovers one skill the university didn’t teach her. When she touches something small and personal, such as a watch, a key, a necklace, belonging to a murder victim, she gets a sort of flash—a glimmer of the murder itself. Will this skill help her in her quest to hunt down the murderer who took her grandmother from her when she was twelve, or will it land her squarely the murderer’s sights?
First Paragraph:
After all those years trying to convince pageant judges I possessed some kind of talent, it turns out I actually do. Too bad it took a dead woman to find it.
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Pitch:
Adriana, fresh out of college with dreams of being the next poet laureate, comes crashing to reality when she must return to her native Park Hill to nurse her estranged mother, Crysta, back to emotional and financial health. In this comic-drama, Adri fumbles, lies, and whines her way to adulthood as she deals with moving back home, refereeing Crysta’s boyfriends, and dealing with her own complex love life. Adriana meets a good soul, Hershey, who becomes her father-figure and who falls in love with Crysta. Things are looking up until the night before Adriana starts her dreaded teaching stint at the high school: she gets drunk with her best friend, and ends up in bed with a handsome young Italian man at the local pub. That “young man” turns up at the high school the next day, looking much younger than the night before, and sending Adri on her own journey to maturity.
First Paragraph:
I sped south on I-35 with the windows rolled down in spite of the heat wave. The air conditioner in my old VW Rabbit was broken, and even though it was midmorning and already 102 degrees, I preferred choking down the muggy wind to dying of heat stroke in my two-door trashcan. The heat reminded me of Flopsy and Mopsy, two white and brown long-eared rabbits I’d gotten for my tenth birthday. Tired of changing their urine-sopped newspaper in my bedroom for two weeks, I toted their cage under the mimosa tree in the back yard where I’d forgotten them and found them five hours later, dead from heat stroke. That was the summer of the 100-plus heat wave in Dallas, when optimistic street vendors struck it rich with “I Survived the Heat Wave!” t-shirts in tie-dye colors. I bought a t-shirt and came home to dead bunnies.
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Pitch: Cam just needed a vacation, a break from the stress of trying to make a name for herself in the big city. But when her trip accidentally took her to a parallel world ruled by magic and monsters, she got much more than a weekend away – she got a new life. One that has her struggling to come to terms with her new world, and her feelings for an old friend with a dark secret and a deadly quest.
First Paragraph:
“You’re coming with us.”
“No! I don’t have time!”
“You don’t seem to get it. You don’t have a choice here. You are coming with us, and that’s final.”
“Peter, I don’t have time to go away for the weekend! I have to work!”
“Bullshit. You always have to work. One weekend off is not going to kill you – but working as much as you do just might. Cam, you live 15 minutes away and we haven’t seen your face in three months! That’s insane! We’re not just going to stand by and watch while you work yourself to death. You’re coming.”
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Title: Isle of The Blessed
Pitch: Since the beginning of time, every soul has been given its final judgment on the island of Hy Breasil. But now the mystical island—and consequentially the destiny of every living soul—is about to be destroyed and Kaylee McCarthy is the only person who can save it. Trouble is Kaylee—or anyone else for centuries—has never even heard of Hy Breasil, much less care about its fate.
Life hasn’t been easy for Kaylee, she lost her dad, lives in a run-down town, has a crazy ex-boyfriend, and is forced to work at her crooked stepfather’s latest money-pit: a carousel. But when a handsome young stranger from a mysterious island called Hy Breasil shows up, suddenly life takes an exciting new turn.
First paragraph:
Chapter 1
Anticipate
The warm water slid down my hair, pooled in the small of my back, and curved down my slick skin toward the drain. It was 7:45 A.M. and in 15 minutes—unless by some miracle this shower could transport me there—I was going to be late for work.
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Kyteler’s Inn
Pitch: When Lecia arrives in Ireland to research Celtic art at the Kilkenny Design Workshops, she finds herself involved in more than a simple job assignment. She cannot ignore Brion Forester, who captures her imagination with his silver craftsmanship and frightens her with his strange ideas. Nor can she understand her dreams about Alice Kyteler, the notorious Witch of Kilkenny. As she probes too far, she discovers a smuggling operation of international proportions and a voice from the past that demands justice.
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Pitch: When Lecia arrives in Ireland to research Celtic art at the Kilkenny Design Workshops, she finds herself involved in more than a simple job assignment. She cannot ignore Brion Forester, who captures her imagination with his silver craftsmanship and frightens her with his strange ideas. Nor can she understand her dreams about Alice Kyteler, the notorious Witch of Kilkenny. As she probes too far, she discovers a smuggling operation of international proportions and a voice from the past that demands justice.
First Paragraph: “Look, Cia!” cried Tess. “It’s a castle — or the ruins of one. She gave my arm a shake. I sat up in my seat on the bus and pulled my denim jacket around my shoulders. Kilkenny Castle had, at one time, been poorly preserved — just the spooky-looking kind of place Tess hoped to find. I looked at the three great towers that stood like sentinels watching over the countryside. The castle was not in ruins. It seemed invincible, and I was disappointed when it slowly disappeared in the torn shrouds of drifting fog.
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Pitch:
Just when it seems Riana Layne is about to get everything she ever wanted, her life falls apart. So when a means of escaping her problems presents itself in the form of a doorway to another world, she doesn’t hesitate to walk through. But she quickly discovers she’s traded one broken world for another and her troubles are only beginning.
First Paragraph:
Philip knew the answer the instant he looked into the Gypsy seer’s grey eyes but still he had to ask. He refused to admit defeat before he’d even begun. Tarvik, the Gypsy leader, shifted his weight, an expression of useless sympathy crossing his hawk-like features. There was naught more the Gypsies could do to help. The words hung unspoken in the air. But this time, Philip had come with a different request.
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Pitch: Aria knows she’s bad luck, especially when she can’t always control her freaky telekinesis. But it goes beyond weird when a (not so) extinct sorcerer and his dying doppelganger claim she can halt the tainted magic leaking out of a mysterious Labyrinth. Unfortunately, dodging bounty hunters hired by the sorcerer’s father, getting her best friend kidnapped, and the doppelgangers’ failing magic bonding with her foils Aria’s race to stop the magic from killing the trio.
First Paragraph: I flicked a crumb off the table and stared at the fake n’ baked guy across from me in our bleak corner of the restaurant. Would hell have to go sub-zero before Mikey broke his vow of silence? Tired of carrying the burden of chit-without-the-chat, I salted the tortilla chips and scrutinized the décor while he analyzed every word on the menu. Dusty silk plants and multi-colored sombreros drooped from dark wood beams. Exactly thirteen sombreros to go with the baker’s dozen sunflowers painted on puke green walls. Heat drained from my face and my stomach became a tight fist of unease. I knew I shouldn’t have risked my Unluck for a blind date on Friday the 13th.
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Title: Hawking’s Grove
Pitch: As a high school senior, Joel Bradstreet’s unrequited teenage crush and a bitter rivalry led to a tragic graduation day confrontation. As a teacher at the same school years later, Joel suspects the sudden mysterious deaths of a group of varsity athletes may not only be connected to a female student he’s become involved with, but also to events from his youth. As the authorities investigate, Joel races to find his own answers and to keep the secrets of both his past and present hidden.
First Paragraph: The bodies hung in suspended animation, naked and tangled among the snow frosted tree branches, their lifeless fingers still gripping to their death perches and their faces literally frozen in expressions of anguish. The icy tableau appeared both grotesquely horrific and strangely gothic: five nude male figures, muscular and youthful, posed in tormented damnation, their pleading gazes cast earthward as if their deliverance would come not from the heavens, but from below.
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Title: The Curse
Pitch: As all evil is not ugly, not all beauty is good. For as long as she can remember, everyone looking upon Princess Cynthia fell in love, and she has had enough of the mobbing admirers and marriage proposals. But when her quest to break her curse throws her into the path of the handsome and powerful (albeit evil) Witch Lord, she is torn between the overwhelming desire to be free of her curse and the pull of her heart toward a less than attractive true love.
In a land of sorrows, tucked away within a woe-begotten swamp, the princess of Montestruelle lived in a high, locked tower. The only child of King Ferdinand and Queen Istalla once dreamed of ‘Happily Ever After’ as did all of her royal friends, but that was before she knew about her curse.
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Pitch: Growing up in a household full of vampires and werecreatures can make any human girl a little bitchy. After I’m kicked out of college, I put my foot down and tell the Big Bad vampire (my true love Triton) it’s time for him to make me an honest woman. You see, my destiny is tied up with his as he needs my special blood to become more powerful and protect me from assassins.
First Paragraph: It sucks to be me. I had hoped I’d gotten over my obsession with Dad’s employer, but here I stood in his study drooling on the big, bad boss man’s Gucci leather shoes as I stare into his midnight bedroom eyes. Nearly six feet of restrained energy topped with coal black hair, Triton Aleron oozed mystery and danger. And I lust for every delicious inch of him with all of my five-foot-three body. Of course, he’s beautiful in that old-fashioned Sicilian sexy sort of way. Olive-skinned and a nose that provoked your imagination about other parts of his body. Lips that thinned when he became angry, like now, but could smile while flashing startling white teeth. No matter how angry, those lips made you wish for a taste of the man.
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SWIFT BEAST
PITCH:When June’s father buys her the unpolished thoroughbred named Eve, she never dreams it will cost her both parents. Within days the fiery filly kills him, leaving the way open for an arrogant Florida developer to take both Eve and her beautiful home from her cash-strapped mother…who also succumbs to his entreaties to resume their bitter romance of many years before, a chapter of her life she’d never talked about. As overwhelmed as June is, she is even more shaken when the cocksure developer gives her a choice: a relationship with him, or say good bye to her horse, home and mother…in short, everything she loves.
FIRST PARAGRAPH:
He was the second Bassett I had met and neither meeting had been exactly a pleasure. His daddy named him Winston and called him Winnie, probably thinking he’d become prime minister of some country that was hard up for one. I called him Whinny.
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TITLE: Operation: Cure Boredom
PITCH: Bored out of his mind and desperate to finally get laid, Carter Covington “accidentally” joins the military. What follows is his humorous and absurd journey about dating and growing up while traveling around the world.
FIRST PARAGRAPH: My name is Carter Covington and I accidentally joined the military. I don’t mean to suggest that I was somehow unaware of my decision or tricked. No. I joined because I openly lamented to my buddy Greg one day that I was nineteen and still a virgin. He suggested that if I joined the military I was going to get laid all the time. How did he know this? Because he watched Band of Brothers and used footage of American soldiers liberating Holland, and their subsequent liberation of the Dutch women, as proof. And my dumb ass bought it.
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TITLE: Bruja-Ha
HOOK/ PITCH: Tabitha Grove has enough to deal with: her barrio apartment is crumbling, her English students are about to take a high-stakes test, and her mother just passed away. When Mexican folklore creatures begin attacking her, Tabby learns that she’s inherited her mother’s legacy of witchcraft – a secret Mom neglected to reveal, kind of like Tabby’s first period. Tabby not only has to learn to use her new talent to defend herself and identify her attacker, but also to contend with her Mom, who is still lingering around this world and still nagging.
FIRST PARAGRAPH: When you become a high school teacher, you don’t expect a chupacabra to show up, rip a row of lockers out of the wall and throw them at you while you’re trying to administer the state’s high stakes standardized test. You also don’t expect your own defensive spell to set your classroom on fire. My pinky was broken in middle school; it messes with my aim. Students ran for the door and windows, kicking up a mist as the fire sprinklers rained down. I shouted for them to slow down, not because I was concerned about them falling and knocking out teeth, but because the mist made it difficult to see where the chupy would attack from next and what he would throw. I’d see another row of lockers sailing at my head – a desk or the class president was another matter.
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Pitch: Working pizza is like living a modern day Peyton Place, especially for a high school senior who is seemingly fresh meat for the buzzards. Lacey is strong and independent even in the face of her budding sexuality, teen-pregnancy and drug-dealing delivery drivers.Inspired by true events.
First paragraph:
Before this is over, you are going to hate me. But I think that anyone will understand what I did and why I did it. You may have even been there yourself, once upon a time. A long time ago… Is that how it starts? In a land far away? Whatever.
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Title: Sex, Lies and Pizza
Pitch: Working pizza is like living at Peyton Place, especially for a high school senior who is seemingly fresh meat for the buzzards. Lacey is strong and independent even in the face of her budding sexuality, teen-pregnancy and drug-dealing delivery drivers
First Paragraph:
Before this is over, you are going to hate me. But I think that anyone will understand what I did and why I did it. You may have even been there yourself, once upon a time. A long time ago… Is that how it starts? In a land far away? Whatever.
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Catherine
connors8@canisius.edu
The magic that once held everything in the world together is now threatening to tear it all apart. In the midst of a dark age where feral magic runs rampant and machinery is falling into ruin, the banished daughter of a bewitched king and the illegitimate son of a shady nobleman are struggling in the politics of regaining their rightful places in society. When they enlist the aid of magic to fight fire with fire, they become entangled in a chaotic web of untamed sorcery, irresistible temptation, and a corruption that runs deeper than either of them ever suspected.
She knew as soon as he walked into the room that he belonged there no more than she did. Charlotte was comforted by the presence of another member of nobility, although, she reminded herself, if he was slumming around in a place like this he couldn’t be much better off than herself. It didn’t take long for him to spot her. Soon enough he was sitting at her table, peering over his glass at her as he drained his drink. His face wasn’t familiar, so he couldn’t be a common presence at her father’s court. Looking the stranger over again, she was reassured that he possessed the distinct mannerisms of nobility, but there was something else there too; a mysterious and almost wild aspect that Charlotte could not place. After several more seconds of staring, she finally mustered up the courage to speak, but he found his first, and proceeded to introduce himself.
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Pitch:
Devyn Shane thinks her life is set as San Francisco’s youngest hotel management hot-shot—until she’s rescued from a murder attempt by a masked hero wearing Armani instead of Danskin, and looking more like a rock star than Batman. But just like Bruce Wayne, the guy comes with baggage: Zane Pearson makes it clear his life is a mess, a dangerous and complicated one, and he’s not about to drag Devyn into it. Yet it’s Zane’s “gang of freaks”, who range from a Goth who craves celery to a fashionista with fingernails that redefine the term “day-glo”, who help Devyn risk everything she is in order to flip the favor and save Zane—and along the way, her soul, as well.
1st Paragraph:
It was a memory I often re-lived in the moments just before sleep came.
We were still kids, and we were at the fair. I’d let Josh talk me into sneaking off, behind the ropes near the performers’ tents. Then the old woman had appeared from nowhere, dressed in the colorful regalia of a gypsy charmer. But that wasn’t the most striking thing about her. Even now, many years later, I remembered her feeble, hunched walk . . . so strongly contrasted by the mysterious, eternal beauty of her face. She’d fascinated me.
She’d terrified Josh.
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Title: BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT
The Pitch:
No one knows Harvard undergraduate Benjamin Taylor is bipolar – and he wants to keep it that way. Even with Phoebe Miller, the medical student he falls for who yearns to heal everyone’s pain, including her own. When mounting academic pressure, medication slip-ups, and a violent shooting unravel his carefully constructed world, Ben and Phoebe face a difficult choice – suffer life apart, or accept a love tinged with insanity.
First Paragraph:
Damn the T. Here I am, stuck in a stalled train teetering over the Charles River. People pack the car, suits and students wedge in tight near the flimsy doors, hanging onto poles. Faces grim, no one talks; I bet they’re obsessing about the billions of gallons of cold, murky water below. I know I am.
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Hook:
The story of a bestselling author who’s lost her mojo and the man that got away.
First Paragraph:
Did anything in the known universe suck as much as author day? Drue didn’t think so. Well, he did have to give a nod to flesh eating bacteria, but his knowledge on the topic was pure hearsay. He’d already survived author day first hand, and the experience bit like a two-ton pit-bull with a nasty case of gingivitis. What did he have to look forward to now? Close encounters with another ostentatious literary blowhard. Like that jerk last month, who’d demanded his double-whipped frappachino be served at a precise 101.6 degrees. As the resident plebe of the small bookstore, Drue spent a sizable portion of his day next to the microwave, thermometer in hand. And this month a romance author was scheduled. Gack.
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Title: Pentacles and Pentimentos
Pitch:: In a world not so different from ours, a Witch-Cop just trying to do her job stumbles across a long-lost relic and gets caught up in an ancient war between the paranormal races and a renegade arm of the Catholic Church. With the help of a half-dragon art restorer, a mischievous kobold and a disgraced shapechanger, she must solve the puzzle of an explosive secret before it can be used to destroy the very fabric of the society in which she lives.
First paragraph:
Donata Santori looked down at the dead body lying at her feet and thought, oh, well, at least I’m not in the basement.
Behind her, cops from the Central Gates Precinct picked their way carefully around the evidence of a botched robbery: scattered tools, a fallen painting, and a second body, lying across the room with blood congealing around a jagged head wound. The corpse she stood next to, the thief responsible for all the mess, wore a dingy black sweater, battered black sneakers, and a slightly surprised expression. His neck sat at an angle never achieved by the living.
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CATS ON THE TEMPLE FLOOR
Rebekah, an Australian backpacker fascinated by different cultures travels to Israel seeking fun and adventure.
Excitement soon turns to dread when she invokes the Ancient Egyptian cat goddess, Bast, who creates a series of dark supernatural events placing everyone Rebekah cares about in danger.
To protect those she loves and survive the curse, Rebekah must lure the goddess back to her tomb in Cairo, and destroy her, but can she break the pact that binds her or will she be trapped in the underworld for all eternity?
FIRST PARAGRAPH
Bast sensed the mortal long before she could smell her. Something had unlocked the darkness that bound her, as blood rushed through her veins, bringing renewed life. Lost to legend for three millennia, her heart surged with the current of a new possibility to breathe and live again in Egypt. Immediately, she knew that this would be different, as the Egypt familiar to her had long past. Her kingdom destroyed, her temple nothing more than ruins, her followers long dead.
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Pitch: Eve Stryker’s life hasn’t been easy, but growing up as the love child of an Fae Princess and a mundane man she has never met taught her to cope. Just when she thinks life can’t get any worse than standing on a corner with her life stuffed into two trash bags, here comes trouble in the form of the Seelie Fae, Val. Val–tall, glowing, hair-that-is-only-in-shampoo-commercials Val–has come to save her, or so he says. With the current Fae Queen certifiable and the Unseelie King believing Eve is the key to conquering both courts, Val promises to be the easiest problem she has to deal with.
First Paragraph:
“Not tonight, honey.” Alex rolled over onto his side and covered his eyes with his arm. Now, if a woman said that, it means I’ve had a busy day and I don’t feel like getting all worked up just to have you finish in two minutes or even I really want to make you happy but I don’t think I have the energy to fake it. When a man says that, it doesn’t take a psychic to know it’s because he already got it from somewhere else. I know; I am psychic.
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Amazing as always :)
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Kiss of Death: A (Para)normal Mystery
When it comes to magic, 21-year-old Cassie Scot drew the short stick. Now, all Cassie wants is to be normal, but earning a living as a private investigator under the shadow of her family’s reputation isn’t proving to be easy.
First Paragraph: My parents think that the longer the name, the more powerful the sorcerer. So they named me Cassandra Morgan Ursula Margaret Scot. You can call me Cassie.
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Pitch:
Lara Quin was not sure what to do with her life after college, until destiny intervened. Catapulted into the 51st century, Lara discovers a prophecy naming her the savior of the universe. Now, along with her two best friends and a makeshift rebellion, Lara holds the key to defending the universe against an evil dictator.
First Paragraph:
Vultures circled above a rocky ravine. Death was imminent; its stench had lured them from their nests. Salivating at the thought of their impending meal, the birds of prey were oblivious of the importance of the battle raging below. Thinking only of their aching stomachs, the birds eyed the two vastly different adversaries: one male, one female. The male was old, yet his jet black hair showed no sign of gray and his face bore no wrinkles. Unlike her foe, the female was young, only 25-years-old. But despite the girl’s youth, her face held worry lines usually found on women twice her age. Falling to ground in defeat, the girl looked into her enemies’ bright red eyes, which glowed in the darkness, like two embers in a fire. Her eyes did not glow, but glistened with sadness. And as he stood over her, his blade ready to strike, she knew this was the end. Like the vultures, she too could sense her impending death. In the last moments before the fatal strike, she thought back on everything that had led her here, back to the first time her life had ended.
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Title: Post Existence.
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Pitch:
Papatya Roussea is an intelligent and talented twenty-three year old, who has lost faith in life.The final straw is when she is unable to do the one thing that she was born to do, to write.
First Paragraph:
My life is deteriorating fast in front of my eyes. My life was meant to be full of promise, and rewards. Rewards of the fruitful kind nonetheless. Plans were easily made, and just as easily dropped. I was meant to be a writer, a famous poet. I was meant to write. You see, let me try to explain to you what has happened here, but as you can already tell, I’m not actually all too clear on what has happened here. What I do know, is that I have fallen into some kind of low ebb. Is that the right word to use? Maybe the word is “decay,” no that’s too dramatic, maybe “deterioration,” that’s more like it, so scrap that sentence, and here we go again, but please do forgive me if it sounds a little too dramatic, but I need some space to move here, so here it goes.
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Title:
SHADOWS
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The Pitch:
Twenty-year old Lily Pendell, a transfer art student, learns more about love, artistic vision and life living in a gargantuan, ghetto shoe factory with a raggedy band of creative types than she does at Boston Museum School.
First Paragraph:
It was second semester and Lily could hardly believe she was walking to her first painting class. Paths to Paint. The catalog description promised each student would embark on a journey to reach her truest form of expression. For Lily, it would involve painting in oils, of that she was sure. All serious painters used oils, didn’t they? Certainly the masters in the Philadelphia Museum of Art had. Thomas Eakins had enhanced the velvet-green ripples around skullers’ boats with oils, John Singer Sergeant mixed linseed into his oils to imitate the sometimes crisp, sometimes buttery folds in elegant gowns, and Cezanne used cerulean oil to achieve the vibrancy of the Parisian skies. She remembered these details almost word-for-word from the exhibition catalogs she’d saved growing up. Lily crossed Museum Road, avoiding the slippery glaze of melting ice as she pulled out her crumpled class schedule and double-checked the address. Yes, the annex was that wooden clapboard right around the corner—so New England, so different than the rambling fieldstone houses of her childhood neighborhood in Philly.
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PITCH: Ginnie West Chandler is enjoying her life as a newlywed on her family’s horse breeding ranch and adores spending time with the three things she loves most, her husband, Austin, her large and varied close knit family and her horses. Ginnie has always been spunky, independent and strong willed, and a huge magnet for trouble, so her bliss is short lived when she passes out on horseback one day only to find that she is pregnant with triplets and her world is turned upside down when she realizes that she can no longer ride her beloved horses, at least until she gives birth to her babies. Dealing with her unexpected pregnancy is often a humorous, touching adventure as Ginnie and Austin navigate the ups and downs of newlywed life as they adjust to becoming the parents of multiples.
TITLE: Go West Young Men! (A play off Ginnie West Chandlers’ maiden name—this book is the first in a series of adult Ginnie stories, I have written five books dealing with 12 and 13 year old Ginnie West.)
First Paragraph:
Ginnie West Chandler glanced around the track as she rode her grand champion stallion, Alakazam, back to the stables. She laughed as she noticed her twin brother Toran and her husband, Austin, racing their horses, Adonis and Quizzler, around the track again. The three of them had been best friends since they were in diapers, but it still seemed weird to her to be married to her childhood sweetheart. Ginnie loved watching her brother and her husband ‘work’ together on their ranch. Ginnie recalled all the fishing trips and horseback races and trouble she and Austin got into growing up and shook her head as she realized that they would be together forever. How she loved that man!
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Title: FINAL LIFE
Pitch:
Eighteen-year-old Dominique doesn’t know what scares her most: the evil entity stalking her through her waking visions, or the forbidden feelings growing between her and her brother. Either way, her life will never be the same as she experiences several other-worldly trials that eventually reveal a secret her parents have been hiding since her birth…a secret of heavenly proportions.
First Paragraph:
Everything went dark as I walked from the well-lit hallway into Infiniti’s pitch-black room.
“Okay, let’s hold hands and stand in a circle,” Infiniti said. “I need to announce our presence before we play the cards.”
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PITCH: Ginnie West Chandler is enjoying her life as a newlywed on her family’s horse breeding ranch and adores spending time with the three things she loves most, her husband, Austin, her large and varied close knit family and her horses. Ginnie has always been spunky, independent and strong willed, and a huge magnet for trouble, so her bliss is short lived when she passes out on horseback one day only to find that she is pregnant with triplets and her world is turned upside down when she realizes that she can no longer ride her beloved horses, at least until she gives birth to her babies. Dealing with her unexpected pregnancy is often a humorous, touching adventure as Ginnie and Austin navigate the ups and downs of newlywed life as they adjust to becoming the parents of multiples.
TITLE: Go West Young Men!
First Paragraph:
Ginnie West Chandler glanced around the track as she rode her grand champion stallion, Alakazam, back to the stables. She laughed as she noticed her twin brother Toran and her husband, Austin, racing their horses, Adonis and Quizzler, around the track again. The three of them had been best friends since they were in diapers, but it still seemed weird to her to be married to her childhood sweetheart. Ginnie loved watching her brother and her husband ‘work’ together on their ranch. Ginnie recalled all the fishing trips and horseback races and trouble she and Austin got into growing up and shook her head as she realized that they would be together forever. How she loved that man!
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Pitch:Hayden Matthews knows three things for sure—he’s not emotional, he’s not a killer, and he’s not human. Okay, four things— his alien zombie habits must remain hidden.
When his host body—an eighteen-year-old celebrity heartthrob—meets the human girl, Olivia, he has strong feelings for the first time. Feelings he doesn’t understand but is determined to figure out.
First paragraph:
“Cut!” the director yells.
Like mice scurrying to get to the cheese, people rush towards me. The hair and make-up team to primp, the wardrobe stylist to de-lint, and my new assistant–the one I hired out of necessity, but can never let into my inner circle–to revise my schedule.
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Pitch: In Taking a Fall, Mallory Steele, a New York fashion designer, comes home to Pittsburgh when Jeremy, her architect brother, is severely injured at a construction site. While the accident is under investigation, she finds herself drawn to Clayton Colby, the very man whose design may have caused the catastrophe. A death, a rush to hide incriminating evidence, and a sabotaging coworker round out this romance with a touch of mystery.
First Paragraph:
“Mallory, we have a crisis!” Sheron Farr burst into Mallory Steele’s office waving a black wool crepe gown draped on a satin hanger.
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Pitch:
When college senior Chloe Griffith returns from her Christmas break trip to Japan, she brings back more than just a simple souvenir. Chloe’s accompanied by an ancient dragon slayer named Masaru that she’s managed to integrate into her modern world as the new Asian studies professor on campus and while he attempts to adapt to the twenty first century way of life Masaru must fight the call to battle that he feels deep in his warrior blood. In this paranormal fantasy romantic adventure, Chloe learns that sometimes life is more about learning to live in the present than in studying the past.
First Paragraph:
Masaru eyed the box with disdain. He’d been here a week already and still hadn’t been able to stop the urge to draw a weapon whenever he felt frustrated. Chloe had tried to explain the device to him last night but he still didn’t trust it. It went against nature to cook food inside a box that contained no fire or other visible heat source. There was something to be said for simplicity. He wondered yet again when humans had become so incredibly lazy.
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Flying Wingman
Pitch: Jace Miller, 23, is the consummate wingman. He can help anyone navigate the sex and alcohol fueled world of twenty-something romance, but as his friends’ measures to find love become more and more drastic, Jace soon finds himself taking the most risky step of all: opening himself up to a girl.
First Paragraph: Love is war? Probably. I haven’t been in love in a while. I know this is true, though: modern romance is like modern war. We’ve left behind the slogging ground war of marriage for the electronic combat of modern flirtation. Love today is one-shot, one-kill, and the whole campaign may be over before the next morning. Modern romance is an air war, and that is why when men go to the bar, we go with a wingman.
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