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NaNoWriMo Archives - Page 4 of 18 - The Book Doctors

The Book Doctors

Tag: NaNoWriMo

  • Joyce Krieg

    South Bay Beat by Joyce Krieg

    The summer of 1960: The Soviets and Ike are playing a high-stakes game of brinksmanship over the U-2 spy plane incident, Kennedy and Nixon are going mano a mano for the U.S. presidency, and the defense industry is rapidly paving over paradise in the South Bay—the region that one day would be famed the world over as Silicon Valley. Enter the world of SOUTH BAY BEAT, a 90,000 word historical thriller.

    Del Verhalden is a scrappy young reporter hungry for a career-making story. When local authorities are all too eager to cover up the death of a young woman found on the muddy shores of the bay, he teams up with a beatnik disc jockey and an annoyingly nosy ten-year-old to expose the truth. The case threatens to topple the aerospace industry that brought the first generation of tech geeks to the South Bay and sends fingers of suspicion far beyond the valley as the threat of nuclear annihilation hangs over the planet. Based on real people, places, and top-secret projects, as well as information in previously-classified documents, SOUTH BAY BEAT sends readers back in time to the dark side of the Camelot era—think “Mad Men” with a murder—and offers perspective on how this obscure farming community transformed itself into the high-tech capital of the world.

    I’m a traditionally published author with three mysteries from St. Martin’s Minotaur. SOUTH BAY BEAT is built upon my own experiences growing up during the dawning days of Silicon Valley.

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    Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

    Listen to our feedback on South Bay. 

  • Ellie Tupper

    Iron and Lace by Ellie Tupper

    In 1890s San Francisco, a spirited young Irish housemaid and an Imperial Chinese agent join forces to bring down a ruthless tycoon.

    Feisty Norah Hourigan has taken a position as housemaid in the home of Hector Gaffney, businessman and railroad magnate, whom she suspects of being involved in the disappearance of Norah’s brother Aengus.  With her Mam’s ancestral skills of knotting magic, Norah creates lacy textiles that can soothe or sicken, reveal secrets, or protect a man’s life.

    Meanwhile, in Canton, China, merchant seaman Stephen Rollison rescues a Pinkerton investigator from a Chinese gang with the aid of Zhou Feiming, an agent of the Imperial Court who is pursuing the same criminals.  Someone is shipping hopeful Chinese immigrants to America, then selling them as slaves and prostitutes—including Zhou’s own brother and his crippled wife.

    Norah’s, and Stephen and Zhou’s, separate searches converge in San Francisco’s bustling, mysterious Chinatown and find their common focus on Hector Gaffney.  Opium smuggling, a massive railroad swindle, Gaffney’s unhappy wife and son, kidnapping and white slavery tangle in a terrifying knot that not even Norah’s spells may be able to unravel.

    Iron and Lace is a YA novel of history and magic, with glimpses into Victorian household management, life in the Chinese railroad labor camps, and the dangerous secrets of underground San Francisco.  My stories have been published in Mindflights, Every Day Fiction, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, and Esther Friesner’s Witch Way to the Mall?

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    Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

    Listen to our feedback on Iron and Lace.

  • Victoria Beck

    Cookie Rookie by Victoria Beck

    Middle Grade Novel

    With more at stake than a gold Medal and against her mother’s wishes, 12-year-old Eloise Hansen risks everything to enter a Baking Competition. Her Mother is baffled and annoyed by her baking obsession and wonders why her daughter isn’t more like her. When her Mother makes plans for a fancy weekend getaway for Eloise to meet her new boyfriend, on the same day as the Competition, Eloise must find a way to sneak out of the festivities and keep her nerves together to bake her trademark championship Cranberry Cutie.

    With the help of her savvy best friend she concocts a plan that will get her out of the nightmare starring her as the darling, dutiful daughter and propel her backstage with twelve grown up Finalists.

    One of the Contestants has swapped recipes and ingredients with Eloise – hoping the rookie will crumble and he’ll emerge victorious. He hadn’t counted on the power of her Dad’s lucky red socks and Eloise’ new-found strength as a capital B Baker. In front of the entire 7th Grade, her Mother and the city of Santa Barbara, Eloise pits her baking know-how and the classic goodness of a straight-up chocolate chip cookie against the experience and determination of the best Bakers in California.

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    Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

    Listen to our feedback on Cookie Rookie. 

  • H.M. Shander

    Audrina’s Moments by H.M. Shander

    Audrina may be a witch to her co-workers, but at home she’s somebody’s hero. Since her mother’s death a few months back, she’s become her twenty-two-year old brother’s legal guardian. Michael suffers from muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy, and while her home suited her, it’s not for someone with disabilities. With his comfort in mind, she sets out to hire the perfect person to make the required changes.

    Chad is the well-researched carpenter for hire. Rugged yet endearing, he agrees to rebuild the deck on one condition–that Audrina help. As the renovations get underway, Chad charms Audrina by having Michael assist, slowly winning her over by treating Michael like a real person. She relishes in these moments with Chad and finds her hardened heart softening.

    As many magical moments as Audrina shares with Chad, beyond the renovations, she knows it’ll never work out. Her heart and energy belong to Michael and his well-being, and despite what Chad thinks is best for her, there’s really no time for frolicking. The more he pushes her to live a little, the harder she fights against him. When Michael’s health rapidly declines, she shuts out everyone; Chad included.

    However, it forces her to see the depth of her loneliness. Maybe Chad really was the perfect person to make the changes… in her. Is it too late to tell him? Or did she push him away forever?

    Audrina’s Moments is a 67,000 word contemporary romance novel set in my hometown of Edmonton, AB.

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    Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

    Listen to our feedback on Audrina’s Moments. 

  • Mike Drew

    Casey’s Star by Mike Drew

    Casey was certain she found exactly what she was looking for when she arrived on her star so long ago.  Time has passed though, and she begins feeling that maybe this isn’t where she truly belongs.  As Casey’s star begins to dim, she’s given the chance to see and travel through the galaxy, peer into amazing new worlds and, potentially, a new place to call home.

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    Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

    Listen to our feedback on Casey’s Star.

  • Tara Liem

    Alliance by Tara Liem

    Leo can remember a time when his world was a little more accepting. Now he knows that he’ll be shot if he admits who he’s in love with.

    As the intergalactic alliances that have held strong all his life fall apart, Leo knows that he needs to do something drastic. Will fighting a war bring the galaxies back together, or will it push the even farther apart? And as the ammunition rains on base 211, Leo understands that the war for the galaxy isn’t the only thing he’s fighting for. He is fighting for the right to love who he loves.

    There are only a few things that could shake up Leo’s world past what’s already happened, and he’s been playing the waiting game for too long. He needs to take his future into his own hands and change the track of history. He needs to show the galaxies that being gay is not the same as being a failure.

    *note: I am only 12 years old.

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    Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

    Listen to our feedback on Alliance.

  • Lucy Hallowell

    The Library of Unspoken Things by Lucy Hallowell

    Seventeen-year-old Charlotte Fairfax has spent the past two months listening to her conservative father give campaign speeches. While he spewed rhetoric about “traditional values” and “the good old days,” she planned a very different kind of speech: coming out to the roommate she’s been in love with since freshman year.

    The night before she’s due to return to Holmes Academy for senior year, Charlotte finds solace in her favorite queer novel, psyching herself up to come out to her roommate. But when her father interrupts and realizes what she’s reading-and what it means about Charlotte herself-he forbids her from coming out. Ever. If she does, he’ll send her away, somewhere far enough that she can’t hurt his campaign for senate. Or see her roommate again.

    Afraid to lose her best friend, Charlotte agrees to stay in the closet. But when all the queer books disappear from the school library-including the one her father caught her reading-Charlotte refuses to remain a silent prop any longer. With the help of her roommate, who Charlotte is half-convinced might be flirting with her, Charlotte launches an underground library. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll find the courage to put her true self on the shelves, too.

    THE LIBRARY OF UNSPOKEN THINGS is a complete YA novel at 78,000 words. It’s MOXIE with a lesbian romance at its heart.

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    Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

    Listen to our feedback on The Library of Unspoken Things. 

  • Angie Romines

    And The Floods Came Up by Angie Romines

    A fearsome flood is about to bear down on Cutler County, and no one sees it coming—no one except seventeen-year-old Cheyenne. She can feel the waters rising in her bones. Life in Eastern Kentucky has been unkind to Cheyenne. Her boyfriend comes home from his shift at the coal mine drunk and angry as sin. Her only friend is ditching their hometown and the middle-aged Bible Camp clown she married in high school. Her daddy’s been gone since before she had memories, and her drug-addict mama went missing months ago.

    But Cheyenne’s mother did her one favor before she disappeared—she warned Cheyenne to get the hell out of Cutler County before the gift took hold. Her mama knew better than anyone that place, with its kudzu-covered mountains and ancient indigenous bloodlines amalgamating, could drag a person to the bottom and never release them.

    Told from multiple points-of-view, AND THE FLOODS CAME UP blends the subtle, setting-based magical realism of Alice Hoffman’s RED GARDEN with the “Hillbilly Gothic” style of Don Pollock and the gritty, braided narratives of Laura McHugh’s THE WEIGHT OF BLOOD.

    I have an MFA in Creative Writing from The Ohio State University where I also teach English to wide-eyed freshmen. Excerpts from AND THE FLOODS CAME UP have been published or are forthcoming in The Bangalore Review, Silver Pen, and Bookends Review. Other work of mine has been published in Blinders Literary Journal, The Bind, 1888 Center, and elsewhere.

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    Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

    Listen to our feedback on And The Floods Came Up. 

  • J. Jackson Pomeroy

    The Weight of a Woman by J. Jackson Pomeroy

    A professor’s chronic dieting to get into her latest pair of designer jeans shreds her self-image as a fervent feminist. The temptation of a taboo relationship with a hot new graduate student and her usual one-too-many drinks not only add to her angst, they put her job on the line – and a lot more besides.  If she doesn’t soon connect all her bad choices with the damage of a past sexual assault, her very well-being is at stake.

    Set on a rural university campus where the experimental sex community begins to draw its first breath, my story blurs the lines of fiction and cultural criticism – a dark-humored, PhD-wielding Bridget Jones romping around in the Hunger essays of Roxane Gay.

    Originally from the UK, I came to the U.S. to earn my PhD.  I am researcher at Wellesley College and the recipient of a writing award, which will appear in an international anthology of fiction this spring.  I have been teaching women’s studies/fiction since 1998, and I am also published in my field. Having had both professional and personal experience with eating disorders and sexual assault, I believe I am uniquely qualified to write a survivor narrative.  

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    Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

    Listen to our feedback on The Weight of a Woman. 

     

  • Melissa Bennight

    The Bronze Mirror by Melissa Bennight

    Ryu wasn’t expecting to find an old bronze mirror when he fell in the well. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to find a cursed old bronze mirror.

    Now he’s a demon with horns, fangs, red skin, and a red hot temper to match, and it’s only thanks to the sacred jewel given to him by a Buddhist priest that Ryu is able to appear human and resume his normal life.

    If you can call fighting demons in your free time normal.

    As Ryu learns to live with his curse he finds himself facing off against a variety of creatures he had thought existed only in folktales, including cucumber loving kappa, fierce tengu, and beguiling snow women. Their master, Ka-an, is after the mirror, and the Buddhist priest who has taken Ryu under his wing believes that Ka-an wants it for nefarious reasons. But when Ryu discovers Ka-an’s true identity and purpose he wonders what side he really belongs on, and if his curse will ever be broken.

    THE BRONZE MIRROR is a 46,000 word middle grade fantasy heavily influenced by Japanese folklore and religion.

    I lived in Japan for four years. Originally hailing from Idaho, my husband and I moved to Nagoya, Japan three years ago. Prior to living in Nagoya we lived in the rural prefecture of Shimane, an area famous for being the place of origin of many Japanese gods and monsters.

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    Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

    Listen to our feedback on The Bronze Mirror.