Monday, November 26, 2018

Saucy Cranberries 2: ABOUT A GOLEM, Adult Upmarket Paranormal Romance OV

Title: ABOUT A GOLEM
Genre: Adult Upmarket Paranormal Romance (Ownvoices)
Word Count: 78,000

How Did You Fall for Writing: Falling for writing is easy. Staying in love is not. The first time I fell, I was in fourth grade and wrote an avant-garde fictionalized memoir about an alien crashing his spaceship into my house. I drew illustrations with every marker I owned and bound it with a plastic report cover and electrical tape. I was officially an author. But for every triumph I’ve had, I’ve also left behind a bloody trail of flash fiction and half-finished novels in my wake. Still, when the doubt picks away at you, the only thing to do is to believe in your words.

Query:

Dear Agent:

Finding the Golem of Prague wedged inside her bathroom is not how Magda’s Friday nights normally play out. A Jewish witch with damaged magic, she knows she needs backup to wrangle the legendary clay monster. Only Eitan, her synagogue’s cantor, can help with this supernatural philosophical mystery, but he’s also the one man she can’t stop thinking about. Unfortunately, as a sharp-tongued woman with split faiths and a talking spider for a roommate, Magda isn’t girlfriend material for a clergy member, and Eitan seems too pure of heart for a woman like her. Besides, once her magic fully heals, she’ll be back on the road as a ghost bounty hunter and out of his life.

Eitan, a former punk with a rap sheet, has turned his life around and moved to Triptych to get a job, start a family, and leave his past in the past. Settling down is hard to do, though, when a distractingly clever witch needs help with a golem who wants to become human. As Eitan and Magda struggle to transform him into a modern man, the good cantor finds himself falling for his most unusual congregant anyway.

In search of a quick fix, the golem recklessly sneaks into the Afterlife to change his destiny in the Books of Life and Death. It’s up to Magda and Eitan to save him from himself, but time is running out. Desperate to save her new friend, Magda discovers the key to healing her broken power. But now that Magda can reclaim her career and Eitan is finally building roots in Triptych, they must decide if their newfound relationship is worth sacrificing the lives they’ve fought to build.

First 250 words:

There was a woman dancing in the cemetery. Eitan sighed and tugged the back door to the synagogue shut behind him.

“That’s what you get for staying late,” he muttered to himself and fought with the deadbolt until it slid home with a reluctant clunk.

Triptych was a spot for oddness to be sure, though small towns usually were. The question was whether he should engage the strange. In the last six months, he’d dismissed little hiccups of weirdness. Examining them too closely might make him regret moving here, so he’d focused on what was important: his job and putting down roots.

Eitan jiggled his keys in one hand and ran his fingers over the smooth velvet of his tallit bag in the other. His feet, fingers, and shoulders wanted to go home. Some things couldn’t be ignored, though. Such as that woman dancing in the cemetery.

She wore a white dress, her long dark hair bouncing and swinging in time with her movements. He heard faint singing, too faint to catch the melody since the old graveyard rested at the edge of the temple’s property. Granted, it was a beautiful evening with a watercolor sky and amused green trees, but that still wasn’t an excuse to be dancing around tombstones. His decision was made.

Eitan headed toward the cemetery, passing tools the maintenance team had abandoned against the side of the synagogue. The long shadows of a broom, rake, and shovel loomed in the fading light.

2 comments:

  1. I'd love to read the full manuscript! Please feel free to send it to andrea@harveyklinger.com with FallFest Requested Material in the subject line. Thanks! Looking forward to reading.

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  2. Intriguing beginning-I’d love to read more. Please send me the 1st 50 pages and 1-page synopsis as Word doc attachments to: Lisa at (@) kimberleycameron dot (.) com Please include “FallFest” in the subject line.

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