QK1 Match 6: War and Redemption vs. Peace Pays What War Wins

Title: The Ones Who Loved Us

Entry Nickname: War and Redemption

Word Count: 80k

Genre: YA Historical

Query:

Budapest, Hungary -- 1944.

During the final months of World War II, Bekah’s grandmother calls her home from boarding school to help care for her overly critical and mentally ill mother. The army forces Bekah’s father into the labor service and then the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian Nazi party, takes her grandmother away. Bekah doesn’t know if she’s capable of holding what’s left of her family together, but she’s determined to try. Soon the Arrow Cross forces Bekah and the other Jews of Budapest into overcrowded apartments in what is the beginning of a plan to “cleanse” the city of Jewish blood.  

With most train tracks destroyed, the Arrow Cross then forces Bekah and her mother to join thousands of other Jews on a death march across Hungary. It is the middle of winter and the Arrow Cross gives them barely any food or water and makes them sleep outside on the frozen ground. On the death march, Bekah fights to keep her weary and discontented mother alive. Despite Bekah’s efforts, an officer shoots her mother and leaves her to die in a ditch along the side of the road. 

Bekah sinks into despair and feels all hope is lost, but then a daring Swedish diplomat arrives at the death march to save anyone with a protective pass. Bekah has a pass and longs to go home, but she also faces a difficult choice: whether to save herself or redeem her broken soul by saving someone else.

First 250:

It took a war to bring me back to my mother.

I sat on my bed in the middle of the dormitory and looked at the envelope. My grandmother’s handwriting was graceful and measured, just like she was. I tore through the flap in one quick movement and the fragrance of her perfume brought me back to a time long ago when I would sit on her lap and listen to her stories. I pulled out the letter.

“Dear Bekah, I think of you often and hope you’re well.”  Her greeting deceived me. It didn’t prepare me for what followed.

She said the Hungarian army had taken Papa away to a forced labor camp far outside of Budapest. 

I dropped the letter. My eyes began to fill with tears but I wiped them away, picked up the letter, and continued to read.

She said Mother’s depression had become worse. Sometimes she didn’t talk or get out of bed for days.

I pressed my lips together tightly and thought how lucky I was to live on the other side of the city at boarding school.

But there was more. I held my breath as I read the next part.

“I know how important school is to you, Bekah, and I wouldn’t ask this if I didn’t think it was absolutely necessary. Would you please come home?” 

I exhaled and struggled to breathe at a steady pace. 

I didn’t read the rest of the letter. My tears made it impossible.

VERSUS

Title: This Is No Courtyard

Entry Nickname: Peace Pays What War Wins

Word count: 76K

Genre: YA Historical

Query:

Vuk is fourteen when the Nazis invade Yugoslavia. Unwilling to see his younger sisters grow up in a fascist country, Vuk joins the Partisans along with his older brother, Pedja. While hiding out in a hay barn, their unit is betrayed, and the brothers are arrested and sent to KZ Banjica.

After weeks of brutal interrogations, Vuk and Pedja are transferred to the north of Norway to build railways and roads for the German occupiers. When they learn Vuk will be shipped to Korgen and Pedja to Beisfjord, the brothers vow to escape and meet up in neutral Sweden.

But before Vuk can make good on his last promise to his brother, two other prisoners flee the Korgen-camp. The Nazis’ reprisals are swift and brutal: thirty-nine men are picked at random and mowed down with machine guns, while Vuk and the other prisoners are forced to watch.

As the Norwegian winter sets in, the conditions in camp worsen. Work on the road is hard, food is scarce, and the prisoners only have the clothes they came in. Emaciated and scared out of his mind, Vuk realizes if he’s to survive and ever meet his brother again, he has to escape. But running means sending dozens of his comrades to certain death.

THIS IS NO COURTYARD is based on narrations from Yugoslavian Partisans who managed to escape the Norwegian death camps and some of the people who helped them.

First 250:

The man strolls down the dirt road in no particular hurry, and I wonder who died to put that smile on his face. It is chilly tonight, but the sky is clear. The midnight sun sets the fjord on fire and highlights the gold in the bastard’s hair. He’s casually dressed in a brown air man jacket and loose-fitted trousers that billow in the breeze. One of his hands clutches a sixpence-hat, swinging gaily in cadence with his steps. The other is tucked into his trouser pocket. I don’t know if he’s armed, but who cares? He’s been drinking, and that will work in my favor.

I’m well hidden among the trees lining the road. Their mid-summer foliage tangles together, creating a dense wall of green, the perfect lookout. When he passes, I follow. The rustle of the wind masks the sound of my steps. Still he senses me and turns. It doesn’t matter. I’ll make my presence known soon enough.

Peering into the thicket, he sways ever so slightly, but he keeps both feet on the ground. My heart speeds up--in anticipation, I guess. This is it. I would recognize him anywhere. The slim nose, the smug mouth, and those eyes like the northern fjords. He’s handsome in that Scandinavian way. Fair, lean, tall. Clean cut features that would make a woman look pretty as well. A cliché of a man, if ever there was one, but what’s not to like?

Fucking Nazi.

QK1 Match 7: No Heroes Here vs. Twisted Red Riding Hood

Title: Following Shadows

Entry Nickname: No Heroes Here

Word Count: 94K

Genre: Adult Fantasy, OwnVoices

Query:

Kieron Lawson is a dashing hero on a quest to save the damsel in distress...in his dreams. In reality, he’s a socially awkward lord with a penchant for heroic fables and an aversion to touch. Determined to discover his destiny, he makes a deal with his family: in exchange for permission to leave home on his own and attend the royal tournament, he’ll finally choose a bride.

Before the tourney even begins, a royal favor is stolen from Kieron’s grasp. Chasing down the thief earns him a private meeting with the princess and the hope of his very own happily ever after. When the princess slips into a deep sleep after being poisoned, Kieron is promised her hand in marriage if he can retrieve a cure from a forbidden land.

The fairytale falls apart when Kieron’s company abandons him, and the only person he can find to guide him through the forbidden lands is the thief who stole from him—a man named Eidolon, who inspires feelings Kieron doesn’t understand and can’t control. When dangerous opposition and Kieron’s own temper threaten to derail the mission completely, he finds himself faced with a choice to be the hero and save the princess, or follow his feelings and save the thief.

Imagine a classic medieval fairytale, where the charming prince is an asexual man on the Autism spectrum who falls for a male companion, rather than the princess he sets out to save.

First 250:

Hollowness spread through Kieron Lawson’s chest as he stared out the lancet window. Lunch had not gone well, but he couldn’t imagine why. He’d done everything by the book.

“Must you keep doing this?” asked Viscount Lawson, tapping his fingers against the table.

“Why do you assume I did anything?” Kieron kept his eyes on the horizon. The sun shining on the wheat field was almost blinding. Cumaro’s farmlands seemed to stretch on forever. By now, he’d all but memorized every golden stalk and hay bale.

“Lady Voss left in tears.”

Father’s methodical drumming sounded like a ticking clock.

“I don’t know why.” Kieron shrugged, thumbing his cold metal tankard. As his etiquette text dictated, he’d nodded politely as the lady spoke, though he couldn’t remember what she’d said. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, that’s exactly the trouble. She says you sat silently for the majority of the meeting, staring at the wall behind her. Then when you did say something, you called her by the wrong name.”

Kieron turned away from the window. “You mean her name isn’t Liza?”

The rhythmic tapping skipped a beat. “No. Her name is not Liza. We’ve known the Voss family for years. How do you not know the girl’s name?” The drumming grew louder. “And did you have to tell her you didn’t like her dress?”

Kieron cocked his head at his father’s squat frame and frowned. He’d answered a question when asked. What else should he have done?

“She asked if I liked it, and I said no.”

VERSUS

Title: Amirah and the Red Scarf

Entry Nickname: Twisted Red Riding Hood

Word count: 86k

Genre: Adult Fantasy 

Query:

AMIRAH AND THE RED SCARF will appeal to fans of GRIMM and is a contemporary fantasy set in the Pacific Northwest similar to PATRICIA BRIGGS' MERCY THOMPSON SERIES.

Protected by an enchanted red scarf, twenty-three-year-old Vidjeti hunter Amirah, tracks and slays the wolf-like demons known as Kurjak. For centuries, these nightmarish creatures have inhabited human hosts, assuming their lives for one year before seeking a new victim.

When Amirah's first solo hunting mission goes awry, she returns home to witness her grandmother in the clutches of an enormous Kurjak. In a desperate attempt to save her grandmother's life, she gives it what it seeks: a sacred family book, only to watch as her grandmother is murdered. Left despondent and alone, she struggles to maintain her semblance at a normal life. However, Amirah's plans are soon shattered when an unexpected attack leaves her possessed by a Kurjak. Rescued by another Vidjeti, the mysterious and handsome Liam O’Malley. Sent to find her, Liam both opens Amirah's eyes (and heart) to an intriguing and vast world of Vidjeti outside her own.

When Liam is captured, Amirah is forced to make a terrible decision. For a chance to save Liam from certain death and reclaim her family's book, she must forfeit her magical red scarf. Problem is it's her only defense against the evil creature now living inside her from assuming complete control.

First 250:

The sweet aromas of freshly baked baklava and cinnamon buns swirled around Amirah and her grandmother as they stepped out of the bakery and into the chill evening air. Amirah's grandmother placed her hand on her elbow. Startled by the unexpected touch, Amirah turned to face her.

Shadow clouded her grandmother's face as she spoke. “Here, Scre,” she said, calling Amirah by her Serbian nickname, meaning “heart”. “You will need this tonight. ” She untied the red scarf from under her chin, gently removing it from her silver-colored hair.

Amirah looked down as her grandmother held it out to her, the red silk draped over the old woman's gnarled fingers. “What are you talking about, Baka? You’re coming with me.”

Shaking her head slowly, her grandmother looked up toward Amirah with deep brown eyes, a shade darker than Amirah’s. She sighed. “No, not tonight, Srce.”

Furrowing her brows, Amirah pressed, “But you always hunt with me?”

“I know,” she said and gave her a warm smile. “But you’re ready now. I’ve taught you everything I can. My eyes do not see as clear as they once did. I fear my presence during the hunt this year would only place you at great risk. You’re a woman now, Srce. You knew this day would come. Tonight, you must do this on your own.”Her grandmother placed the scarf in Amirah's hands, forcing her fingers to close over the silk fabric. A shiver of magic rippled through the scarf, tingling Amirah's palms.

QK1 Match 8: Hungry Ocean Gods vs. Farmer Jack is Trapped in a Carrot

Title: Tidepool

Entry Nickname: Hungry Ocean Gods

Word count: 77K

Genre: Adult Dark Fantasy

 Query: 

In 1913, Sorrow Hamilton is searching for her vanished brother Henry. Defying her father’s orders to remain home, she travels to the last place Henry is known to have visited – Tidepool.

After corpses wash up on the shore looking as if they’ve been torn apart by something not quite human, Sorrow is ready to run back to Baltimore and let her father send in the professional detectives. But then she encounters Mrs. Ada Oliver, a widow quite unlike the other Tidepool residents. 

A visit to Mrs. Oliver’s home and a terrifying encounter with the daughter Mrs. Oliver keeps in her basement lead to Sorrow’s discovery of a dark secret: the sacrifices Mrs. Oliver makes protect Tidepool from the horrifying creatures living in the ocean. If the Lords Below don’t get their tributes, they will rise.  

Sorrow wants to get justice for her brother, but doing so could doom all the town’s residents. And the denizens of Tidepool—human and otherwise—are hell bent on making sure Sorrow never leaves. 

First 250:

Tidepool looked like the kind of place where people went to die, not to live. 

After less than a day there, Henry Hamilton had already seen enough. His father had settled on the little oceanside town as a possible location for a beach resort. Henry’s colleague and friend Charlie Sherman returned from the place completely high on the idea, but as Henry strolled around Tidepool’s dirt streets he couldn’t understand their enthusiasm. 

The only thing about Tidepool that Henry found impressive was the brick mansion that sat atop a high hill overlooking the town and the Atlantic. The enormous, elaborate house looked like someone had dropped it in from another, wealthier place.

The rest of Tidepool was all rusted metal signs and fading paint on wooden buildings that had long since warped in the town’s pervasive dampness. The ramshackle stores lining the main street looked like they might collapse into splinters and planks if Henry gave them a good swift kick. 

He was starting to want to. 

The vast, sprawling cemetery that Henry passed did little to improve his opinion of the place. Rows of mossy headstones stretched back as far as he could see, and the graveyard appeared larger than the town itself. 

Well, that’s a swell sight to greet visitors, he thought. 

The pervasive odors of salt water and fish wafted off the nearby ocean but another smell lurked underneath those, something even less pleasant. Henry couldn’t identify it, but it reminded him somewhat of the stench of a dead animal rotting in the woods.

VERSUS

Title: Chang and the Transdimensional Carrot

Entry Nickname: Farmer Jack is Trapped in a Carrot

Word count: 115K

Genre: Adult Portal Fantasy

Query: 

Jack Avens is having a bad day. His back aches, his dog is missing, and his neighbour has trapped him in a carrot.

After thirty years of vegetable farming, Jack is ready to retire alongside his wife, Fern, and his dog, Chang. After a wretched day in the fields, culminating in the disappearance of his beloved dog, he discovers what appears to be an ordinary carrot. He picks it up, intending to toss it into the compost pile, but is transported to another realm instead.

Jack learns his loathsome neighbour and farming rival, Hal Stormthord, is responsible for pulling him into this strange dimension. Hal has secretly been in love with Fern for decades. Feeling bitter and wronged, he has decided to trap both Jack and Chang in his carrot-world. He hopes their loss will drive Fern into his arms. 

But Jack has his skeletons, too. In addition to stealing the woman Hal loves, he’s guilty of sabotaging Hal’s farm and driving him to alcoholism. 

Meanwhile, Fern has discovered the carrot back in the real world and plans on eating it for dinner. If she consumes it, Jack and Chang will be lost forever. Jack must now confront his dark past in order to escape with Chang before Fern finishes her dinner and dooms them both to eternity in the carrot.

First 250:

Something was wrong with Jack. Or rather, something was wrong with his perception of reality today.

Grimacing, he held a hand up to his nose. Although he had been starving, the decrepit smell of the chicken coop baking in the afternoon sun was enough to turn his stomach. He usually gathered the eggs after breakfast, but there had been an emergency this morning. The farm’s temperamental potato digger was refusing to cooperate. Jack was the only one on the farm capable of fixing it. Before he knew it, the entire morning passed by and he had missed lunch.

It wasn’t just time that seemed to be slipping away, he reflected as he collected the eggs. It was as if the entire world was as well. He had a terrible, underlying impression a great dimensional shift had occurred, and his farm was at the hub of it. The feeling had taken hold like an invasive weed, its roots spreading deep as the morning progressed.

During breakfast, his wife joked that he must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Jack had merely rolled his eyes at this. With his arthritic knees, lower back pain, and hip replacement, he had been waking up on the wrong side of the bed for the past decade. 

Jack Avens did not feel like he had woken up on the wrong side of the bed; rather, he felt he had woken up in the wrong bed, period.

QK1 Match 9: I'll Stand Bayou vs. Neurotic Aliens in Manhattan

Title: Warden of the Lost

Entry Nickname: I'll Stand Bayou

Word Count: 99K

Genre: Adult Southern Gothic Fantasy

Query:

  

Thaddeus Fortier is a Warden of New Orleans, guardian and peacekeeper to all things that go bump in the bayou. The job’s got terrible benefits: zero sick days, no dental, and it comes with a sort of compulsive conscience to keep Wardens walking the straight and narrow. Murder, mayhem, even little white lies—all off the table for the City’s chosen guardians. Which is downright problematic for a man like Thad, who’s hell-bent on avenging the murders of his mother and brother. He’s got the whodunit down; all signs point to the City’s resident racketeer, a bougie backwater baron named Papa Ru. The trick is convincing Mama Nola that there’s more to Thad’s mission than a good old-fashioned revenge plot—preferably before Papa Ru makes good on his promise to turn Thad into gator bait.

Thad’s got a plan. Wardens and supernaturals are going missing in New Orleans, and turning up dead if they turn up at all. It stinks of Papa Ru and his one-man war on all things otherworldly, and if Thad can connect the dots back to him, it might be just what he needs to convince the City to let him have his vengeance. But with Papa Ru’s threat hanging over his head, and more pissed-off supernaturals than he can stir with a stick, it might just be Thad who’s next on the list of the lost.

WARDEN OF THE LOST is a mash-up of Elmore Leonard’s whackjob crime novels and Neil Gaiman’s darkly bizarre supernatural stories, and would appeal to fans of fantasy, horror, and magical realism alike.

First 250

The taxi driver blinked at me in the rearview with glazed-over eyes. “Where to?” he asked. His voice had the dull monotone of somebody who’d said the same two words so many times they’d stopped sounding like words. Just reflex, now. The bless you after a sneeze that just wouldn’t quit.

Three pine tree fresheners dangled from the mirror, and I still smelled something rancid-sweet wafting up from the upholstery.

“Belle Knoll cemetery,” I said.

The driver’s eyebrows ticked up toward his hairline. “Funeral?”

“Yeah.” Not exactly tough math to do: black suit, dark tie, headed to a graveyard. It was the kind of no-shit question that begged for a sarcastic answer, but I’d lost my sense of humor with my luggage at the last layover.

I looked away from the rearview to watch the airport traffic give way to good old New Orleans highway. Flat land, green grass, that unlikely mix of palm trees and crepe myrtles growing side-by-side—I’d figured I wouldn’t ever see it again, but the City had her own ideas. And Lord, she could be a real bitch about getting her way.

“Friend or relative?” the driver asked. The question fell on the wrong side of personal, but neither of us batted an eye. Taxi drivers are the bartenders of the road: you sit in their seats, you tell them your woes, and you walk away with a lighter heart—and a lighter wallet. It’s a pine-scented taste of everyday magic, and it’s true what they say: all magic has a price.

VERSUS

Title: Going Native

Entry Nickname: Neurotic Aliens in NYC

Wordcount: 94k

Genre: Adult Sci-fi

Query

Lance has a good life in New York City . . . until he learns his home planet is planning to colonize and has to decide whose side he’s on. In a panic over losing everything he’s come to love about Earth––including his human girlfriend––Lance tells a lie to put off the colony, saying the planet has been ravaged by earthquakes and using the movie San Andreas as “evidence.”

Just one little lie, but it has consequences. Lance’s planet, Xaclan, is in political turmoil.  Without the distraction of a new colony, the government is taken over by a power-hungry general with a fondness for beheadings. Lance’s sister and her wife, a high-up-official in the former government, flee to Manhattan with their children and take up residence in the Ritz-Carlton––a situation made trickier by the fact that Lance’s sister-in-law, unlike the rest of them, refuses to transfer into a human body.

When Lance and his fellow scouts, Katy and Matt, are notified that additional, unknown fugitives are roaming the city and a retrieval team has been sent after them, it seems unlikely that Lance’s lie will remain unnoticed. If the new government learns the truth, they’ll send a colony to raze the planet and round up all the humans, pausing just long enough to arrest Lance and take him back to Xaclan to be executed.

Lance always knew his time on Earth could be cut short at any moment. With the end looming ever closer, the life he’s built––and the humans he’s come to love––feel more important than ever. If he does nothing, then sooner or later he’ll lose everything. But if he tries to take action, he may just lose what little time he has left.

First 250 Words

“You're supposed to try and look normal.”

Katy turned to discover Lance had come up behind her while she was sorting through mail in the lobby of her apartment. “Running downstairs to get the mail in your pajamas is normal.” She looked him up and down. “Spending an hour on your hair and wearing $300 jeans on a Tuesday? Not so much.”

“Hey, I’m just playing the part. I gotta be Lance. And Lance––” he flicked an imaginary fleck of dust off one sleeve and straightened his immaculately-pressed cuffs “––knows how to dress.”

Looking up, he discovered she’d thrown her mail in the recycling and was heading towards the elevator. He hurried after her, turning to face forward as the door slid shut.

They were both average-looking humans, the kind you wouldn’t look at twice. Lance was a twenty-something black guy with fashionable clothes and carefully styled curls. You wouldn’t be surprised to learn he told people he was “in fashion“ but really worked part-time at an upscale clothing store in Tribeca––though you might wonder how he could afford all those clothes on an hourly wage.

Beside him, Katy was about the same age, with pale skin and messy brown hair. She wore fluffy pink slippers, pajamas with tiny hearts on them, and a short bathrobe over top. You wouldn’t be surprised to learn she was a blogger––though you might wonder how she could afford such a nice apartment.

You might also wonder what they were doing together in an elevator at ten a.m. on a weekday.

QK1 Match 10: Unnaturally Dyed Boutonniere vs. How to Not Be a Nazi

Title: GREEN CARNATIONS

Entry Nickname: Unnaturally Dyed Boutonniere

Word count: 93K

Genre: Adult Historical LGBTQ

Query:

GREEN CARNATIONS is a 93,000-word LGBTQ adult historical fiction appealing to fans of Mackenzi Lee's Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue and Cat Sebastian's M/M historical romances.

Under its glittery surface, Belle Epoch Paris is a brutal place where an illustrious name or a fat bank account are almost the only means of advancement. His illegitimate birth leaves Brit expat FIN TIGHE with neither. So he schemes to find investors for Gustave Eiffel's pet project: a 300-meter tower that will dominate the city's skyline. If Fin raises money, his commission will earn him a fortune, and if he's lucky, some protection. Because his evenings spent in the clandestine gay community might be legal through a loophole in the Napoleonic Code, but they're anything but safe. 

Then a hurricane-force charmer named GILBERT DUHAIS knocks Fin off course. Gilbert is wealthy, connected, and--Christ wept--seductive as hell. Not only does he sweep Fin off his feet, he introduces Fin to every nouveau riche speculator in the city. But Gilbert's capriciousness isn't the only thing keeping Fin up at night because somehow, Gilbert's privy to the secrets Fin ran away from in his native Yorkshire. 

When a dear friend is murdered, clues indicate that Gilbert might have hijacked Fin's life for duplicitous--even deadly--purposes. Fin must untangle what he believes are disparate threads of his past and present before they become his noose. 

First 250:

Paris, 1886

I lifted my glass to hide my unshakable imbecilic smirk in another drop of wine. The terrace wasn’t empty, but I had my choice of seats facing the general direction of the river, towards the Champs du Mars. Not that I could see it over the mansard roofs of my neighborhood’s apartments, but I knew where it was. I wasn’t the most creative man; my talents were concrete; numbers and measurements. Dependable things, unable to be changed on a whim. But when I lifted my gaze up toward the waxing moon, I could almost make out the iron lacework tower that might change my life.

Would change it. 

And Monsieur Eiffel would ensure I'd be well-compensated.

The expanse of butcher paper serving as a tablecloth begged for some scribbles, and I pulled a pencil from the pocket under my green-tinted boutonniere. With a flourish, I wrote out the sum I could have done in my head when I was six, let alone one-and-thirty, but I needed to see the answer in writing. Twenty percent.

 Good Christ. I giggled, and I never giggled. Giggling was for small children and overenthusiastic young girls. Yet, there I sat, in a crowded restaurant, and something I vaguely recognized as joy burbled out.

 "Fin?"

My head whipped up at the unfamiliar male voice. I could count on one hand the people on earth who called me Fin rather than Finley or Tighe, and none of them would hover around a perfectly bourgeois establishment like this tonight—or any night. 

VERSUS

Title: Upstairs at the Café Pequod

Entry Nickname: How to Not Be a Nazi

Word Count: 80k

Genre: Adult Historical Fiction

Query:

Upstairs at the Café Pequod will appeal to fans of Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See and Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale. The story centers around a little-known piece of French history, a Nazi war atrocity so obscure that I have spoken with European Theatre veterans of the Second World War who have never heard of it.

Kristian Molenaar's childhood has not instilled him with a sense of faith in humanity, and what little he has left as an adult has been all but destroyed by his years stationed in Nazi-occupied France. An unwilling conscript in the German army, he is finally jerked out of months of helpless apathy when he comes to the aid of Virginia Morgan, the proprietress of a tiny village café. The two strike up an unlikely friendship, growing closer as the war drags on. Against the odds, a fledgling romance begins... but Virginia, Kristian soon learns, is much more than a simple café owner, and the dangerous secret she hides could spell certain death for them both- and, quite possibly, for Virginia's entire village. Set against the backdrop of the Nazi massacre of Oradour-Sur-Glane and told from alternating viewpoints, this is the story of a fiercely independent woman who learns that to love and to need someone does not make a person weak, and of a man who learns that the silence of the everyday citizen is truly evil's greatest and most effective accomplice.

When I stumbled across an article about Oradour-sur-Glane, while reading about the French Resistance, I was absolutely dumbfounded. Six hundred and forty-two innocent civilians slaughtered by the Nazis? An entire village wiped off the face of the map for no reason at all? How had I, in my own extensive reading about the Second World War, never heard of this? I knew, immediately, that this was a story that needed to be told. This novel is extensively researched, its supporting cast populated with people who really lived in Oradour before its destruction. The climax is meticulously constructed around the eyewitness testimonies of the tiny handful of people to have survived the massacre that day.

First 250 Words:

Kristian has been coming to this cozy corner café nearly every night for over a week, and with each visit, he notices something new about her.

It begins with her hair, with the way that long, errant strands are continually escaping the knot at the base of her neck, the way bright red tendrils work their way out of her kerchief to brush the sides of her face. She’s forever huffing a breath out of the sides of her mouth, blowing the disobedient curls back and off of her cheek, when her hands are too full of dirty dishes to tuck them behind her ear.

           

Just as noticeable as her hair is her height- or, rather, her lack of it. She is positively tiny, not much taller than the oldest of the children who scamper into her café on their way home from school, digging in their satchels to scrape up enough pocket money to buy a cookie or two, hoping that she’ll take pity on them whenever they come up short (which, from what he has seen, she almost always does).

           

Later, he notices the smaller details: the girlish smattering of freckles dusting her nose, the intense blue of her eyes, her tiny waist under her apron, her slender eyebrows that arch so expressively, both in amusement and in annoyance.

           

He doesn’t yet know her full name. He has only heard the local townsfolk refer to her as “Mademoiselle Morgan,” which intrigues him, because Morgan is not a French name.