Coded For Murder

Title: Coded For Murder

Age and Genre: Adult, Thriller/Mystery

Word Count: 70 000

Query:

The leaders of a tech startup are serially tortured, poisoned and bludgeoned to death, propelling a scarred detective into a three-day chase among Montréal’s cafés, hipsters, and geeks to stop a killer from striking again.

Three years after the death of his wife and son (for which he is partly responsible), Chief Inspector Derek JAMES of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal has accepted his physical and emotional scars and lives for the thrill of his next case. But the investigation is complicated by his boss trying to kill him, and the need to protect the twelve-year-old psychiatric patient who witnessed the murder. Plus, the startup’s CEO won’t let anything get in the way of her selling the company. With two more attacks occurring within twenty-four hours, James must race to the finish to catch the murderer.

First 250 Words

CHAPTER ONE

April 2, 6:50 am

“Strung up by the river? Without a face?”

Chief Inspector Derek James of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal tucked his cold hands into his pockets and looked up. A rope looped over the middle branch of an oak in the urban beach park. Above him hung a body with an exposed skull, framed by sparse hair on top, ears on either side, and a wrinkly neck puckered in a noose. The face was stripped to the bone with eroded teeth set in a perpetual grin as if the skull were enjoying a joke at everyone’s expense.

James’s gut tightened, but he stilled the reaction in an instant, regaining his calm.

“I’m sure we’re thinking the same thing, Derek.”  Forensic Pathologist John Seymour exercised professional restraint, but his eyes were bright and keen. “What could this poor guy have done to deserve this?”

James took his time responding. Dawn cast a blue light on the water and snow. A damp cold sank through his coat and into his bones. It was amazing how the usually peaceful beach park took on a menacing air: the St. Lawrence River choppier than usual, swirls of sand and snow rolling like tumbleweeds, the sky heavy and low. But a children’s playground lay behind the hanging body, and its red swings, bright yellow slide, and empty wading pool anchored the mind in a comforting reality.

“What can you tell me, Doctor?”

*****

Participants do not comment on other entrants' posts, only your own. You can bribe, coax, share, tweet, and do whatever to your entry, but you cannot comment on anyone else's.

The Judges

Ayden Morgen

Elsie Elmore

Leigh Statham

Mara Valderran

Stacy Nash

Elisabeth Roderick

Samantha Bryant

&

Me!

Visitors welcome!

Please comment as to whether this pitch piques your interest and what feedback you have about making it stronger.

Your assessments will be appreciated by the participants.

And I Remembered

Title: And I Remembered

Age and Genre: Adult contemporary

Word Count: 80,000

Query:

Miami is a light, carefree, airy place where Elisabeth believes she has found herself, and found someone else. She believed she had found the best life and the best love in Jamie, a single 23-year-old from Canada. The relationship is sweet and exciting, until Jamie turns dark, plagued by a concussion from a hockey accident and a subsequent addiction to cocaine. Then, she learns she is pregnant. Then, she suffers a miscarriage. Then, she has to leave.

Chicago is dark and lonely, a place where Elisabeth has to find herself, but ends up losing herself. She reunites with her best friend from college and finds a certain kinship with her coworker. However, two chance encounters with Jamie drive her to promiscuity and to a suicide attempt that she survives.

Pittsburgh is where she had to heal, and to figure out what direction she goes in, whether it’s teaching, writing or fighting for something she believes in.

First 250 Words

There was a point that night where I finally turned and walked away, into the darkness of the New Jersey night, away from the buildings and the anger. I just kept walking. With each step I went over what got me to this decrepit place in my life and to this decrepit place on the sea. The angst. The bad decisions. But as I kept walking, I got sadder, and sadder, thinking about how sweet and simple my time in Miami was less than five years ago. What brought me here? Was it losing a child? The drugs Jamie did? Leaving him and going to Chicago? I asked myself if I did the right thing by leaving. I asked myself that at least twice a week, but told myself that I had to find my own way.

As I walked the length of a pier above the churning Atlantic Ocean, I took inventory of what I lost. I lost my best friend. I hadn’t talked to my parents in weeks. I never told them what had happened in my life, what led me to where I screwed up everything and where I disappointed everyone – including myself.

Then, I remembered the person who told me that I was brave, that I was strong, that I was different … things I needed to hear.

But I lost Jamie, too. I lost him long before that night in New Jersey.

Did I have much else left to lose?

*****

Participants do not comment on other entrants' posts, only your own. You can bribe, coax, share, tweet, and do whatever to your entry, but you cannot comment on anyone else's.

The Judges

Ayden Morgen

Elsie Elmore

Leigh Statham

Mara Valderran

Stacy Nash

Elisabeth Roderick

Samantha Bryant

&

Me!

Visitors welcome!

Please comment as to whether this pitch piques your interest and what feedback you have about making it stronger.

Your assessments will be appreciated by the participants.

Venom

Title: Venom

Age category and Genre:  Adult Thriller/Eco-thriller

Word count: 108, 000

Query:

While at a symposium in Key West, herpetologist Kylie Marx is thrown into the investigation to solve the slaughter of rare endangered skinks. And if that's not enough, an infestation of snakes, scorpions, and a variety of creepy crawlers invades the small island. With a looming anti-venom shortage, Kylie and her fellow scientists scours the town to milk venomous reptiles and amphibians to make anti-venom. Kylie fears she won’t have enough for everyone. She explores the option of creating synthetic anti-venom. Until things take a serpentine turn for the worse. She deduces that the man responsible for the outbreak is the same person who left her for dead in the Everglades twelve years ago. Now Vaughan St. Croix breeds dangerous hybrid snakes and sells his poached kills on the black market. His evil presence is no coincidence. It coincides with the National Zoological Symposium for Endangered Species.

St. Croix threatens Kylie and her new friends with an ultimatum: produce a vial of synthetic anti-venom for his deathly ill sister by midnight. Or  watch those around her succumb to fatal venom.

First 250 words

Chapter 1

Kylie studied the Solomon Islands dark green skinks climbing the glass walls of its tank in slow motion. Such a rare species to exhibit, she examined the long slender male consuming a diet of fruits and vegetables. On a quiet morning at the reptiles section of the Naples Zoo, she waited for the female to emerge and be courted. Before she could check the Key West Mole Skinks in the second tank,  her older sister bolted into her office.

Penny breathed heavily as she came to a halt. “Kylie! Did you check your texts?”

“No. What’s up?”

“All your hard work finally paid off. You got the grant!”

“You’re kidding. How do you know?”

While Penny explained the details of her financial endowment for research, Kylie’s heart wanted to explode with joy. This was a big opportunity for her to shine!

Giddy with excitement, Kylie hugged her sister. “I kept wondering when I would hear. I thought I wasn’t going to get it.” With no word on their end, she feared they turned down her proposal for her research.

“I know it’s last minute. But the National Zoological Symposium is worth it.” She paused. “But we’re going to look into the delay, while you get your ass to the airport.”

Both Kylie and Penny worked at the Naples Zoo in Caribbean Gardens, a nonprofit organization cooperating in conversation, both inside and outside the wild for endangered species.

“When’s the flight?” Kylie asked.

“It leaves in two and a half hours.”

*****

Participants do not comment on other entrants' posts, only your own. You can bribe, coax, share, tweet, and do whatever to your entry, but you cannot comment on anyone else's.

The Judges

Ayden Morgen

Elsie Elmore

Leigh Statham

Mara Valderran

Stacy Nash

Elisabeth Roderick

Samantha Bryant

&

Me!

Visitors welcome!

Please comment as to whether this pitch piques your interest and what feedback you have about making it stronger.

Your assessments will be appreciated by the participants.

Skipping Stones And The Silver Strike

Title: SKIPPING STONES AND THE SILVER STRIKE

Age and Genre: Adult Historical Fiction

Word Count: 82,000

Query:

Sue, the only survivor of a wagon train attack, is taken by a horseman to the Land of Many Waters. She must decide whether to put aside her own grief to become the replacement daughter for a grieving mother, or wander as an orphan alone in the wilderness mourning the loss of her massacred family.

Geum Song Ban, a scholar wishing to experience the ways of the West leaves his native Korea to become a stowaway on a ship bound for California. When he rescues a tiny Chinese girl from China Town gangsters, his choices are to stand against the certain retaliation, or flee with the girl into the California desert.

First 250 Words:

Ma set such a store by reading and ciphering. Now Ma’s dead, and reading and ciphering aren’t much use to a person when they’re dead. Pa’s dead too, and Pap. Nearly everyone who came west in the train is dead, I reckon. Some of them aren’t dead yet, but they will be soon enough.

I don’t know about Gershom. He was cracked on the head and went rolling yonder, blood spurting.

There’s no time for worrying now, no time for anything except walking and walking, fast as all lightning, to wherever ‘tis they’re taking us. I’ve never walked so fast in my life. I’ve never seen anyone walk so quickly as these savages. I swear we covered as much ground in half the time as a six horse stage.

Pap was going on most days and nights since we left home about meeting up with savages. Seemed the more he talked about it, the more he seemed to relish the prospect. But he don’t relish it none now I reckon, with his innards all torn out and frying in the sun. Ma she tried to hush him, telling him his carrying on and storytelling was scaring the children. But he never cared, just countered the prospects of meeting up with some was mighty high in these parts. He described all kinds of tortures and mayhem the savages set to committing on any fool person blamed enough to be caught out in their territory. 

*****

Participants do not comment on other entrants' posts, only your own. You can bribe, coax, share, tweet, and do whatever to your entry, but you cannot comment on anyone else's.

The Judges

Ayden Morgen

Elsie Elmore

Leigh Statham

Mara Valderran

Stacy Nash

Elisabeth Roderick

Samantha Bryant

&

Me!

Visitors welcome!

Please comment as to whether this pitch piques your interest and what feedback you have about making it stronger.

Your assessments will be appreciated by the participants.

Martin's Wings

Title: Martin’s Wings

Age & Genre: Adult Romance 

Word Count: 104,000

Query:

Martin is a commitment-phobe.  He’s also a pilot.  All hail breaks loose on his wedding day as icy pellets rain from the sky and he sneaks out the church window, ditching his bride-to-be and flying home to sunny Southern California.   Countless one night stands later, he returns to podunk Pennsylvania for kooky family holidays only to find his ex on the arm of an old football rival and his relatives full of helpful sex advice. Martin’s instincts: take wing on the next Triple Seven back to Orange County.  But this runaway groom’s bolting days may be drawing to an end after a long-legged runner saunters past his wiffle ball game.

The cute blonde offers Martin a taste of her cotton candy and a taste of his own medicine as she plays flirt and flee with him.  Confident, extroverted, and a little bit wacky, Coral’s everything Martin is not.  A red-eye flight home would be easier for Martin than a game of cat and mouse with this girl.  To find his Happily Ever After and avoid flying solo forever, this pilot will need to stop running away from love and start running to it—if only he could get Coral to stick around for longer than a New York minute.

First 250 Words: 

“There’s only one way out of this room, Marty.” Uncle Lars pointed to the altar doorway. “Whether boon or doom awaits you there, no one can know.”

Booooom.

Thunder rattled the sacristy’s stained glass. Martin jumped. High. That’s when the rain started. Sheeting. On Martin’s wedding day. Full on roaring thunderstorm. Deluge, really. One that violently morphed into the rapid, crackling ping-ping of dropping hail.

Doom then.

Squinting out the yellow-tinted stained glass, Martin discerned a flurry of suits and dresses charging the cathedral gates. Icy munitions poured down, riddling car roofs, dinging hoods, and pelting wedding guests. “You know,” Lars said, scratching the skull underneath his erratic Einstein hair, “some cultures consider hail good luck for your nuptials.” Good luck? “There are others, however,” he continued, “who view hail as God’s retribution on the iniquities of humanity.” Bad luck. “Sin lately, Marty?” Ummm… “Did you remember your Mother’s Day gift?” Shit. “Marty! Marty! Marty! Any dick off the street can tell you Mother’s Day is the single most important 24 hours in your Mother-in-Law’s existence. Women who selflessly wipe poop off baby butts and open rent-free basements to socially backward thirty-something sons need to have some kernel of joy in their otherwise bleak lives.”

“She’s not my mother-in-law…yet,” Martin croaked, deep voice catching in his throat.

“She will be. She will be,” said Lars, pitifully attempting a Yoda-ish voice. Drawing no response, Lars shrugged. “At least you’ll get laid tonight. Another thirty years, you might not be so lucky.”

*****.

Participants do not comment on other entrants' posts, only your own. You can bribe, coax, share, tweet, and do whatever to your entry, but you cannot comment on anyone else's.

The Judges

Ayden Morgen

Elsie Elmore

Leigh Statham

Mara Valderran

Stacy Nash

Elisabeth Roderick

Samantha Bryant

&

Me!

Visitors welcome!

Please comment as to whether this pitch piques your interest and what feedback you have about making it stronger.

Your assessments will be appreciated by the participants.

Handsome Is As Handsome Does

Title: Handsome Is As Handsome Does

Age and Genre: Adult/Historical Romance

Word Count: 75,000

Query:

                     

This Regency romance is set in Bath and Gloucestershire in 1817, at a time when England is crippled by war and poor harvests. Loose behaviour is not uncommon, but just how far will the love-struck heroine go to win her man, and has she chosen the right one?

This Happy Ever After story follows the adventures (and misadventures) of young governess Emma d'Ibert, who is keen to restore the fortunes of her once-noble family.

To do this she must work hard, keep her identity secret and try and avoid the pitfalls of living under the same roof as beguiling rogue, Charles Keane. She has inadvertently made an enemy of his friend, Viscount Tidworth, who has the power to expose her and bring her new life crashing down around her ears.

Tidworth's marriage plans are crushed when a delay on the road, for which he blames Emma, allows another gentleman to step in and claim his sweetheart. He is furious when Emma, as part of one of Charles' wicked schemes, attends his charity ball pretending to be a wealthy countess. Should he unmask her, or save her from disgrace at the hands of the amorous Charles?

First 250 words

Gloucestershire April 1817

Emma barely understood what had just happened.  

  

The cart she was travelling in had been lumbering towards the crossroads when suddenly Carrier Marshman hauled on the reins, slewing the vehicle sideways and almost toppling her from her seat. The panicked neigh of a horse followed by an ominous thump  made everything clear. Alarmed at the sight of a hefty cart bearing down on the crossroads through the obscuring rain, a thoroughbred had shied and thrown its rider, then bolted off towards Bath.

Horrified, Emma scrambled down, hampered by her rain-sodden skirts. As Marshman jumped to the ground to calm his edgy team, she squelched towards the fallen horseman.

 He lay supine, staring up into the leaden sky with a glazed expression, his beautifully cut riding coat spattered with mud, arms flung out on either side of him as if welcoming the rain into his embrace. He emitted the occasional groan, but seemed unable to elevate himself from his unfortunate position.

 "Oh sir, are you alright? Let me help you up."

 Blue-grey eyes flickered towards her face, struggling to focus.

*****

Participants do not comment on other entrants' posts, only your own. You can bribe, coax, share, tweet, and do whatever to your entry, but you cannot comment on anyone else's.

The Judges
Ayden Morgen
Elsie Elmore
Leigh Statham
Mara Valderran
Stacy Nash
Elisabeth Roderick
Samantha Bryant
&
Me!

Visitors welcome!

Please comment as to whether this pitch piques your interest and what feedback you have about making it stronger. 
Your assessments will be appreciated by the participants.

GOING THROUGH THE CHANGE

Meet Samantha Bryant today's guest author!

Take it away Samantha!


JUDGING MY OWN BOOK BY ITS COVER

A cover is a really important part of a book. What the cover looks like can have more to do with whether a reader decides to pick up your book than the words on the inside or the blurb on the back, especially when you’re a newb that no one has ever heard of!

That's a terrifying prospect as a writer, because, most usually (of course there are exceptions), we don't make our own covers. In fact, depending on your path to publishing, you, as author, might not get any say at all about what the cover looks like.

A bad cover can make the uphill climb of finding an audience that much harder. It's like birthing a beautiful and intelligent child, only to have someone else reject it as worthless because your child is wearing dirty or ugly clothing. I've seen several indie writers put out a book with a less-than-professional cover (usually a financial decision), then re-release it with a better one and see large changes in the kind of attention their book attracted.

My debut novel came out with Curiosity Quills Press on April 23, 2015. (I am perhaps, maybe, just a smidge excited about that). Curiosity Quills is a small, independent press. My contract with them gave me input on the cover, but no right of refusal and no requirement that they actually use my input.  So, I was on tenterhooks, waiting to see what my cover would look like.

You wanna see it?

I love it! And, boy was that a relief!  

The cover is by Polina Sapershteyn , a graphic designer in NYC that Curiosity Quills contracted for the work. (Here's her website if you want to check out some of her other work).

There are several things I love about this cover. 

First, the bright yellow is really eye catching. When I've seen it displayed onscreen on an Amazon search page, for example, I feel certain that anyone seeing it would at least glance that way because of the bright yellow. The image also instantly suggests humor and superhero, two important hints about the book on the inside of this cover. 

Second, Polina captured a lot of revealing details about threads of the book in this one image. The torso is thick in the waist, in a way that is not typical of superhero comics, but is completely normal for my menopausal characters. The costume is non-professional looking--the cape held on with a tied ribbon and the tunic consisting of a tee-shirt looking material that wrinkles across the breasts. That fits so well with Helen's thread in the story (she's the one who does eventually make herself a costume)! The image used on the center of the chest suggests gender and LGBTQ+ issues. That fits so well with Linda/Leonel's thread.

I was utterly amazed by how well Polina was able to represent my work, especially when you consider that she and I have never met and only made contact online after she'd already done my cover!  There's not much there from the ideas I submitted, except thematically. But, you know, she's a graphic artist. I'm not. Her ideas were better than mine. There's something to be said for trusting the judgment of professionals.

Now that my book is out there in some bookstores, competing for a potential buyer’s attention, with so many other books, I appreciate the eye-catching and story-representing cover all the more. I may be a little biased, but, judging this book by its cover, I’d say the reader is in for quite a ride.

Going Through the Change is going through a change in price for a couple of days in early August. On August 5^th and 6^th you can get the Kindle edition for free on Amazon. Check it out at: http://bitly.com/face-the-change

Samantha Bryant is a middle school Spanish teacher by day and a mom and novelist by night. That makes her a superhero all the time. Her debut novel, Going Through the Change: A Menopausal Superhero Novel is now for sale by Curiosity Quills. You can find her online on her blog,  Twitter, on Facebook, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on the Curiosity Quills page, or on Google+. 

Thanks Samantha!

Have you ever judged a book by its cover and been pleasantly or horribly surprised?

*****

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