Pitch Wars ALT: LL-2 THREE CARD MONTY

MENTOR: Susan Spann

SECOND ALTERNATE: Ellis Callen

TITLE: THREE CARD MONTY

CATEGORY/GENRE: Adult Mystery

WORD COUNT: 60,258

PITCH:  When a child abuser turns up dead in an immigrant family’s home, a down-and-out security guard must find the killer, and the missing teenage girl accused of the crime, before the police—or the killer—discover the secret evidence that will force the security guard to take the blame.

EXCERPT:

Clifford reacted as if a corpse was a common thing to find.  Then again, he’d been to Vietnam.  And he hadn’t been in the hallway with that terrible thing--easy for him to play it cool.

I was … less cool.  “Jesus Christ, a freaking cadaver!  What the hell do I do?”

Cliff made the face that meant he wanted a cigarette – his face scrunched up when he thought about smoking – but I wouldn’t let him smoke in the store, even if either of us could afford the habit, which we couldn’t. 

“You’re real sure it wasn’t Rosa, right?” Cliff asked.

I thought about it.  True, I still didn’t know where Rosa was, which terrified me – Was everyone dead over there? – but I took some deep breaths and considered the shape in the stairwell.  It was all wrong for a teenage girl. Much bigger, much broader. Even without the head, I was a hundred per cent sure.

“Nah man,” I said. “It wasn’t her.  It was a dude.”

Clifford shrugged.  “Okay then.  I’m recommending doing nothing.”

“What?” I asked.

“Monty, how you even gonna explain why you were over there?”  Clifford settled into his seat and shook his head. 

Good point.  I’d taken off in the middle of my shift.  I’d left a homeless person in charge of the store.  In fact, the entire night’s events, which ended with me walking in on a headless corpse in a stranger’s unlocked house, sounded pretty unlikely. 

Forget getting fired, I’d probably get arrested.

Pitch Wars ALT: LL-3 CUT FROM THE EARTH

MENTOR: Heather Webb
ALTERNATE: Stephanie Renée dos Santos
TITLE: CUT FROM THE EARTH
CATEGORY/GENRE: Historical Fiction w/ Magical Realism
WORD COUNT: 117,000


Pitch:

When an earthquake devastates Lisbon in 1755, a Portuguese tile maker flees the wreckage to the Amazon. In the jungle Piloto falls under a female shaman’s spell and together, they must fight missionaries for their right to live.


Excerpt:

The sky was an ironed blue sheet without a crease of cloud. A solitary silhouette wheeled over the Atlantic, then cut inland to the outskirts of Lisbon. The shadow followed the Tagus River dotted with merchant ships.  In the distance seven church-spired hills blessed the skyline. Over terracotta roofs, cork orchards, and tile factory smokestacks the carrion crow sailed.  It swooped, coming to rest on the kinked branch of an olive tree, in the Fabrica Santa Anna’s red geranium-lined courtyard.  

The bird gave a guttural caw, and took flight again.

Piloto Manuel Pires arose from his workbench and set an ear to the door.

A boy as black as squid’s ink burst into the shop, pleading, “Pai! Padre! Help!” 

Piloto abandoned the pricking of holes into transfer paper. Ebony faces turned from their worktables pushed against whitewashed adobe. A worker slapped a ball of clay onto a gesso tabletop and halted. Dust floated in the air. Scents of loam permeated the space, room enough to house a king’s coach and steeds.

In the doorway of the draft room, Piloto’s wife Paulina, and their two daughters, Constanza and Isabella, froze and stared at the shop’s main entrance. He grimaced, fixing his gaze on the little boy and the shelf above him, where their ceramic statue of Saint Anthony was perched over the doorway. Light shone through the shop’s warbled panes, stacked crates of tiles called azulejos resting below.

Piloto stuffed his pouncing tool behind his ear, and swiped chalk glaze from olive-brown hands onto his smock, careful not to soil the Franciscan habit...

Pitch Wars ALT: LL-4 THE DEATH CLOCK

MENTOR: Heather Webb
ALTERNATE: Dayspring MacLeod
TITLE: The Death Clock
CATEGORY/GENRE: Literary with speculative elements
WORD COUNT: 99,000

PITCH:

In Kit's world, everyone is born knowing when they will die. But an ex-lover's posthumous message leads her to a terrible secret: the government is carrying out medical experiments on refugees -- and death is not as predictable as it seems. Now a dead man is Kit's only ally in exposing the plot and saving thousands.


EXCERPT:

Death minus eighteen hours.

The sun was high over the Kensington Park horizon, and the reds and oranges of Jonathan's last sunrise had faded into a pale blue morning. There was, Jonathan discovered, a last time for everything. Last flight, last visit to his old flat, last sight of the Houses of Parliament striking a pose for the omnipresent flock of tourists. Last pair of pyjamas, last outfit laid out ready for the morning ahead - the last morning.

Jonathan turned from the window and looked at the antique pocketwatch open on the bedside table. Its hands had stilled, but time would not stop. On his alarm clock, on the grandfather clock in the hall, on Big Ben, all through the house and the world, his last minutes alone ticked away. Eight o'clock now - any minute, the precious quietude would end. And yes, even as the eighth bong of the grandfather clock died away, there was his cousin's slow, heavy stride creaking up the stairs.

Zach Levine was a ponderous person, his size giving him an air of authority. Nevertheless, he opened the door and looked in timidly, with a red face and a silly pasted-on grin. 'It's a big day,' he bleated, a rehearsed line. 'How are you feeling?'

His words came out in a panic, all in that stupid shrill tone, and he moved stiffly, as if his shoulders were as tightly sewn as the sleeves on his jacket.

Pitch Wars ALT: LL-5 THE GARDENS OF SUNRAY

MENTOR: Sarah Henning

ALTERNATE: Jeremy Hepler

TITLE: The Gardens of Sunray

CATEGORY/GENRE: Adult Mystery + Hint of Supernatural

WORD COUNT: 80,000

PITCH: When Parker Lundy’s dad is murdered and he learns Malik, a gifted young boy who was seen fleeing the scene with a gun, is innocent, he teams up with his new-found sister Cherie and ex-girlfriend Hannah. Together, they struggle to peel back the layers of deception surrounding the crime and bring the killer to justice, and also to protect Malik from racist townsfolk and a relentless, Islamic radical father.

EXCERPT: Other than cursing after each unsuccessful attempt at trying to reach his uncle, Parker traveled in absolute silence, knuckles white on the wheel. He and his dad had talked on the phone regularly, shooting the shit about everything from sex to taxes, and when they’d talked just ten days ago, his dad hadn’t mentioned having problems with anyone in town.

Sure, Will had been in his fair share of disagreements and spats over the years like everyone else, but he had few if any real enemies. And violent crimes were rare in Sunray. The last armed robbery happened back in ’11 when a meth head stuck up the Toot ’n Totum on Highway 55, and the last outright murder happened way back in ’05 when sixteen-year-old Kim Dawkins stabbed her dad in the crotch while he slept because she “wanted to poke him the way he’d been poking [her]” every night since she was twelve. It just didn’t make any sense that someone would want to shoot Will Lundy. It must’ve been an accident. Or a mistake.

Parker reached Sunray around five a.m. and rolled down his window for some fresh air when he turned onto Main Street. A mild fall breeze rushed in, carrying a faint scent of smoke with it. 

Both of Sunray’s fire trucks were parked in front of Lundy’s Local Luxuries—a brick one-story building tucked between Hal’s Shoe Store and the Education Federal Credit Union—and two cop cars, lights flashing, sirens off, blocked the road on either side of them.

Pitch Wars ALT: LL-6 THE SWEETHEART

MENTOR: Amy Reichert

ALTERNATE: Katrina Carrasco

TITLE: The Sweetheart

GENRE: Historical Fiction

WORD COUNT: 98,000

PITCH: San Francisco, 1849. When gang violence threatens her bar, Elena hires a lawman for protection—and discovers he’s leading a kidnapping ring. She must choose between facing the gangs alone or becoming his partner in crime.

EXCERPT: Cold wind cut at Elena’s throat as she squinted at the clouds. Any gleam of sunlight would cast a shadow pointing west, but the narrow strip of sky visible from the alley was gray in all directions. She could not tell the way home.

The street ahead seethed with fog. Shapes of men appeared in monstrous pieces: a back humped with saddlebags, a torso bristling with pickaxes and shovels. If the miners were headed to the Sacramento ferries, going against their traffic would guide Elena away from the waterfront and back to the center of town. But the flow of men was stopping, reversing. Bodies jostled at the alley’s mouth. There was a bark of encouragement. The hollow clap of a punch. Someone fell hard into the muddy road, and the crowd began to roar.

Trash-filled mud shifted under Elena's boots as she moved toward the shouting. She felt a chicken bone’s brittle crack. The solid pop of a shard of glass. A fleshy grind she did not want to name.

At the side of the alley’s mouth a canvas tent shuddered in the wind. Elena paused beside it, waiting for the brawl to break up before she entered the street. Metal clanged so close and loud it left a ringing echo in her ears. A string of curses salted the air. A shout: “Put his fucking eyes out!” Then silence.

Her breath came quick and shallow. She raised a hand toward the young man behind her, signaling for him to wait. Three heartbeats. Four.

She let her hand drift down.

“Let’s g—”   

Pitch Wars ALT: LL-8 THE LADY CALLER

MENTOR: Shelley Watters
ALTERNATE: Wendy Qualls
TITLE: THE LADY CALLER
CATEGORY/GENRE:  Steampunk Historical Romance with magical realism elements
WORD COUNT: 90,000

PITCH:
A steampunk sorceress and a reluctant inventor must cover up a friend's engagement and fake their own in order to rescue a kidnapped girl.

EXCERPT:

Tinsmouth, Devon, 1870

“Perseverance!”

Vera froze. No one had called her by her real name in ten years – and no one else's voice had ever caused her mouth to go dry quite like his did. Once upon a time she would have sworn she’d never forget him, or the sound of his voice, but spending the last decade in London must have ground down her brain. Even now, with her old home so close she could taste the raw tang of tin in the air, Cole’s voice had the power to turn her mouth to dust.

Vera squinted down the tunnel, but the faint starlight filtering into the tunnel’s mouth was coming from behind her and she could just barely make out his silhouette as he approached. He hadn’t changed that much – still those massive shoulders, that purposeful gait. Had he always been so menacing, or were her emotions merely getting the better of her?

She took a deep breath and tried to will the sudden tension out of her system. Somehow, in all the time she’d spent dreaming of this homecoming, she had managed to convince herself she was ready to face Cole again. She couldn’t afford to be wrong.

Cole stopped, close enough for Vera to make out the shock on his face. He was looking beyond her, up the tunnel to the gaping hole in the once-solid wall which had protected the town of Tinsmouth from the outside world for the last quarter-century. The mine's weathered steel door still stood beside it, silent and menacing in the deep shadows, but Vera's digging machine was much more efficient with the rock.

 She resisted the urge to turn and admire her work. The machine's work, mostly – she had only needed to use her Calling to create the initial spark which ignited the boiler. Although it was a miracle she hadn't accidentally set the whole coal hopper ablaze, considering her anxious state. Ten years ago – honestly, ten months ago – she wouldn’t have thought it was possible to come back like this.

Pitch Wars ALT: LL-9 TWIST OF FATE

MENTOR: Shelley Watters
ALTERNATE: Martha Mayberry
TITLE: TWIST OF FATE
CATEGORY/GENRE: New Adult Fantasy
WORD COUNT: 80,000

PITCH:
After goddess-born, NYC socialite Pandia travels through time, she convinces Julius Caesar to ditch politics for gardening, altering his destiny. As punishment, her father, Zeus, sentences her to mortality in ancient Pompeii. Pandia must show she’s changed, but a gladiator’s proving tempting and Mt. Vesuvius is rumbling.

EXCERPT:  If I hadn’t traveled back in time to attend that party with Aphrodite, I wouldn’t have met Julius Caesar. Jules wouldn’t have taken my advice to ditch politics for gardening, and I wouldn’t be in deep shit with my father, Zeus.

I took a fortifying breath, yanked down my red crop top, and swept into the Great Hall. My father and step-mother sat in gilded thrones at the end of the room, wearing tropical clothing and matching scowls on their tanned faces.

As I strode through the pillared aisle leading to the receiving area, the click-click-click of my heels echoed in the stillness surrounding me. Normally, gods packed the aisle and the alcoves between the pillars, chatting as they waited for a word with my father. The fact that it was just me, Dad, and Hera was ominous.

I halted before the dais and tried not to squirm under Dad’s white-hot gaze. His silver hair stuck up in all directions, as if he’d raked his hands through it.

A frown deepened the lines on his face. “Pandia,” he said without his usual greeting. “You’ve done it again.”

Hera smirked and clutched the arms of her throne with fingers like talons.

Sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows, creating colorful patterns on the marble tiles. I traced an outline with my peep-toe Louboutin and avoided his eyes. “Could you be more specific?”

“Julius.” He sighed like the weight of a planet rested on his shoulders. “When will you stop fooling around with notorious mortals?”