Dear Ms. Kotchman,
I’m querying you because I read your wish list and understand you're interested in young adult fiction as well as thriller and suspense. I notice you'd also like a novel with well-crafted characters, particularly one struggling with a duality of culture, which is a conflict with both of my main characters. I would like to show you my 70,000-word Paranormal Young Adult Romance, SOUTH OF LIGHT'S END. If I may, I'd also like to direct you to my blog (address is below) where I posted a review from Harper Collins in which they expressed an interest in the outline of SOUTH OF LIGHT'S END and wished to read once completed. I won the review by vote and was very encouraged by their compliments.
Willamina Holt finally finds a boy who understands her completely, a boy she could fall for; unfortunately Elliot is already dead.
Willa turns inward after a bed of snakes almost kill her father, and she’s left to deal with her good-intentioned foster parents, an obnoxious boy from school and a ghost boy with enough Southern charm to talk a chicken out of its feathers. Though the town thinks Elliot drowned, Willa hears the truth from the ghost’s own mouth and sets out to help him find his murderer.
Sympathy turns to love, though Willa knows a relationship with Elliot is as hopeless as getting her farm back. But there is someone in town she could find happiness with if she would only look. Someone in Willa’s new beachside town needs her as much as she needs him and he could help uncover the secrets of Elliot’s death.
If that doesn't put pepper in her gumbo, this other boy’s hang-ups sure do.
Tate, a British transplant, sticks out like a one-eyed cow on this Florida peninsula, and his cheating father doesn't make life any easier. Tate’s issues make a fifteen-year-old mute girl seem positively healthy.
Full of mystery and the kind of bond that death can’t stop, SOUTH OF LIGHT’S END tells the tale of three teenagers whose paths cross in unexpected and haunting ways.
I am the editor/owner of The Headland Voice newspaper and I have more than fifteen years of experience as a journalist: The Dothan Eagle, The Eufaula Tribune, The Jackson County Floridan. With this background, I have a considerable multi-state following from loyal readers and contacts with former colleagues.
Thank you for your consideration.
Lisa Terry
334-648-2468
aterry50@hotmail.com
http://twitter.com/lisaslanding
http://lisaslanding.blogspot.com
Per your submission guidelines, the first chapter:
A wrinkled ocean lies in the embrace of violet skies;
sprinkled throughout are tiny stars,
sprinkled throughout are tiny stars,
flickering as though preening for more attention.
They halt at the sound of the sirens.
They halt at the sound of the sirens.
Don’t leave. I’m scared.
Red and blue beams rotate over the ocean, again and again,
threatening to drown out the starlight.
But the stars are steadfast and soon resume their flickering,
a Morse code of sorts.
a Morse code of sorts.
Never fear. We’ll be waiting for you. It’s not time yet, young man.
You must find the great thing, cherish it, and then you will be among us.
South of Light’s End
Chapter 1 Willa
My
fingertips trail along the gleaming wood of the banister as I tiptoe down the
stairs. But when I reach the bottom, the unmistakable creak of wood ricochets
off portraits adorning the three-storied walls. Chills shoot up my back when I
realize the sound didn’t come from me. It’s the balcony that curves in front of
the rest of the rooms. Squinting into the dim light, I scan the open hallway,
but what I’m looking for stays just out of reach.
Cool
air blasts over my feet. Deep breath. Look down. A vent.
With
a shake of my head, I glance around for an open door…blown by a breeze?
Anything to explain the slam I heard a minute ago.
Just
forget it.
I
turn to make my way back up the stairs and almost stumble when I feel
it—something that can’t be explained away like a vent. My ear hums like
something’s hovering too close, like listening to a seashell for the sound of
the ocean. I stay still as he lifts my hair. Sparks fly inside me when I feel
his hot breath on my neck; I close my eyes and tilt my head. A whisper of warm
air sweeps back and forth, from the back of my neck to the side. Back and
forth, back and forth. My stomach leaps with each movement.
Then
he’s gone…or never really there. I tighten up when I feel the shivers coming
again.
Loneliness
does weird things to people.
Tears
pool in my eyes. I’m not capable of real affection; I have to make it up. The imagined ghost that floats around in my head since I
moved here. How long does it take to drive a perfectly sane girl crazy? Three
days at the Choehola Bed & Breakfast will do.
I could ask my faux parents if they’d seen anything freaky, but
there’s a couple of problems with that.
“Willa,”
my foster mother calls from the balcony above. I hate that this place is so
big. “Are you okay?”
I
covertly wipe the tears from my face, relieved that she’s probably too far away
to see them. Okay, maybe a big house has a few perks.
She
makes her way to the landing and comes down the stairs. “I thought I heard a door. Chad and I were just about to come say
goodnight.”
Chad
pops his head out of their door, looking sheepish, his black hair a little
ruffled. Ew! I don’t want to know
what they were doing. “Uh…,” he stammers. “I was about to hop in the shower.
Let me get my robe.”
I
head to my room, trying not to roll my eyes as Jackie follows me. You don’t have to tuck me in like a baby.
I’d tell them this, but I don’t speak.
At
all.
Nope.
No one has gotten a peep out of me in the two months since the accident. But
that’s not the only thing keeping me from telling them about my ghost. They’ll
think I’m crazy. Ha! I’m mute. They
thought I was crazy the moment they took me in. That day was one of the worst
days of my life. Second only to one other.
I
squeeze my eyes shut and almost walk into my door jam. Jackie watches as I ease
down on top of my covers. I’m fifteen years old—not five!
She
tucks her pale brown hair behind her ear as she eyes my bed. I know she wants
to pull the covers over me. No. Just no.
Chad
leans against the door jam and waves. I think he forgets that I’m not deaf. You
can speak to me, Chad, I just won’t speak back.
“Goodnight, Willa,” they chime.
Short
and sweet, unlike the discussions Daddy and I used to have before going to
bed—anything from moonbows to mythology. Some nights he played plaintive notes
from a violin. Not necessarily a lullaby for me, though. He only played when he
was sad, and it would go on late into the night. Now those notes are often in
my dreams, the only sound overlaying a nightmarish scene. One of the reasons I
can’t sleep. One of the reasons I keep thinking I hear things. But didn’t
Jackie say she heard something?
“Try to get some sleep,” Jackie says. “You’ll
need it for your first day of school.”
New
school as a sophomore. Yay.
After
they leave, I roll myself tightly in my blankets. The only thing showing is my
head, a tribal babe in a papoose. Security for the lonely girl. Pitiful.
I
stare at the ceiling and recite Sappho’s Hymn
to Aphrodite in my head until I fall asleep.
At
my new school, class begins at eight o’clock. Late. Back at home, the bell rang
at seven thirty on the dot, though eighty percent of the student population had
been up for at least three hours already. There were chores to do on the farm.
I’ll continue to wake with the sun just to stay in the habit. The only problem
is filling the time. It’s the very reason I’m standing on the porch, ready to
go, thirty minutes before the bus is scheduled to run. At least the view is
pretty.
My
temporary home is less than a mile from the mouth of a peninsula…the cape in
Cape San Blas. I have to admit, though grudgingly, mornings are beautiful here.
The most beautiful I’ve ever seen. My eyes ache as I pry them open further to
take everything in. The purple, blue, and green sky rests softly on the
teal-blue ocean water, topped with white curls of waves. The sea oats, darker without
the full power of the sun, wave in the ever-present breeze. I wave back. It’s a
southern thing.
By
the time I make my way to the end of the drive, the sun is fully up and
restarting its roast of the earth. In Florida, the twelve-hour rotisserie feels
more like a steam bath. The Snow Birds complain—that would be the Canadian
tourists—but I love it.
Tilting
my head up, I inhale the humidity-laden air deeply just before the rumble of
the bus reaches my ears. I ease my mask down: I imagine something between a
scowl and disinterest. I’m surrounded by rich people here on the cape, and the
last thing I want is them talking to
me or, worse, attempting to take me on as a charity case. I have no plans of
talking back and I definitely don’t want to make friends, charitable or real.
I
swing my hair, trying to get a little air to my heated neck before the bus
arrives.
Before
I walked out the door earlier, the faux mom, Jackie, asked me if I was nervous
about the first day at my new school. I only shrugged. First day or last day,
it’s all be the same to me. “Your hair looks pretty down like that, Willa.”
In
appreciation for the compliment, I gifted her a half smile. Little did she
know, I left it down just for the bus ride. It isn’t comfortable to wear a pony
tail on a bus as it bumps down the road. A hair tie is around my wrist for
later.
She
should have stopped there but Jackie has foot-mouth disease. Open mouth and
insert foot. “You can see more of the red in it that way, less blonde.”
My
hair is red like my daddy’s. Not
blonde like the meth-addicted, white trash mother I’ve only seen in pictures,
or the blonde cardboard cut-out Florida girls.
The
bus grinds to a stop in front of me. “Good morning,” the driver chirps after
swinging the door open. I take stock of this woman before stepping up. She’s
wearing a silky white shirt and matching pants, and it’s nothing less than red
high heels that press the brake pedal down. She grins between blonde
flat-ironed flaps of hair, and I notice a dot of magenta lipstick on her left
front tooth. Okay….
I
nod and keep my eyes down, hiding my smile as I make my way past her.
We’ve
only made it past two driveways when the driver stops the bus abruptly. I catch
sight of a brainless idiot running up to the stop with a little girl in tow. He
grips her purple backpack, and her mouth hangs open as though she’s surprised
and amused at the same time. Her eyes are full of five- or six-year-old
mischief.
The
boy, a year or two older than me, wears a scowl under his pronounced cheekbones
and deep-set dark eyes. His thick brown hair waves as the wind seems to be in
on the joke and decides to ruffle his feathers even further. The girl walks
onto the bus, still giggling. I guess this means we’ll be stopping at an
elementary school first. She plops into the seat ahead of me and waves out the
window. He rests his hands on his hips before giving a curt nod and heading to
a three-car garage. Hmm. Too cool to take little sister to school, huh? Rich
fathead.
When
I registered Friday, they went ahead and showed me around. No confusion, no
talking. Check. So I go straight to homeroom this morning with no problem.
Emblazoned in blue ink across the dry erase board is Welcome to Mr. Christy’s class. He stands at the front of the room
and greets students with a grin so big his gums show at times. Mr. Christy, a
tall and lanky man with curly brown hair, is also my first period teacher. So
after the bell rings I stay in my seat located in the front of the room, two steps
from the door. Easy access.
I
didn’t look around much during homeroom, just stared straight ahead, but I note
every student as they enter the classroom for first period Honors English. It’s
like a leaky faucet. Drip, drip, drip. Over-privileged, bleached blonde,
pretty. Over-privileged, bleached
blonde, pretty. Over-privileged, bleached bl—Someone fix the faucet!
Then
in walks a brown head. Yay, different. Whatever.
“Tate,
you missed homeroom.” Mr. Christy picks my desk to lean on. His khaki-covered
backside rests just above my notebook. Awkward. But he has those soft eyes that
say he’s just plain ole good, and his manner of speaking is gentle and non-judgmental.
The
boy, Tate, is halfway across the room before he turns back with a guilty
expression on his perfect face. It’s the rich fathead. When he answers, I
almost gag.
“I’m
sorry, sir. Here is my tardy slip.” Seriously? He’s going to have a British
accent in freaking Florida. Who does he think he is?
My
eyes narrow as I replay his words in my head. Fake accent? I can’t be sure.
Suddenly, his eyes turn to me. He furrows his brow and his mouth forms a
circle. I open my eyes full force and shrug a shoulder. He presses his lips
together, forming a thin line. Haha! He has found someone who doesn’t like him.
Poor idiot—it must be quite a shock.
When
class begins, I forget about the Englishman and actually become excited about
class as we go over the syllabus. This teacher is more passionate about poetry
than even me. Well, it’s close. Frost, Sapho, Plath….
“Whup, I forgot to call roll.” Finally, he
gives my desk a rest and sits at his own, tapping on his keyboard. It’s going
to be that way, huh? Roll is taken on a computer here. They still take
attendance in roll books back in Caryville. Ooooh, archaic.
“Clarrisa?”
A
girl in the back with a blonde French braid gives a bored, “Here.”
“Brad.”
“Here,”
a blond curly head says beside me.
“Beth.”
A
cheerful “Present,” comes from somewhere behind me. I stop looking.
“Willamina.” The teacher raises his head and
looks around the classroom with an open expression.
After
he catches sight of my raised hand, Mr. Christy’s eyes shoot back down to the
screen. The teachers have been warned that I won’t talk.
A
few giggles erupt from the back of the room, and I jut my chin out. Screw them.
Three months ago I would have cracked someone in the jaw for calling me by my
full name. Truthfully, I did – Joey Sewell felt my wrath, but that was a
rarity. I used to be happier, cheerful even. No, I won’t go that far. Peaceful.
My changing mood has nothing and everything to do with the newfound pride in my
name. I used to only answer to Willa, but since the accident, Willamina is just
fine.
When
the bell rings later, Mr. Christy gives me a little half wave good-bye, and I
almost smile. Almost. And then he
walks in front of me, blocking my view.
“Excuse
me. Do I know you?” Tate asks.
I
look up and shake my head.
“I
didn’t think so.” He tugs at a green spiral bracelet on his wrist. “But you
looked at me earlier like I’d pissed in your porridge.”
I
shrug, gather my things and stand to leave.
“You’re
not going to tell me why you gave me the go-to-hell look?” he asks right before
someone walks into the backpack slung over his shoulder. Tate sort of twists at
the same time he pitches forward, knocking a notebook out of my hand.
“Sorry,”
he says and retrieves it.
He
doesn’t hand it over, though; he clasps it to his chest instead. I hold my hand
out with eyebrows raised.
Much
closer now, closer than I want him to be, he stares down at me. His eyes are a
weird mixture of brown and green. A silky brownish color covers the outer part
of his irises and green takes over the inside in a jagged pattern like a
sunburst.
“Shoot
your daggers elsewhere,” he says, pronouncing neither of the R’s. So maybe the
accent is real. Tate slaps the notebook
onto my palm and tilts his head as he gazes down at me a second longer. He turns
and leaves the room.
Oh,
I know he didn’t just dismiss me. And I will shoot my
“daggahs” at whoever I want!
It
only takes me a couple of classes to realize my mistake as far as the type of
students at my new school. Not so rich. The elite students are mixed with the
not-so-elite. Actually, the elite are the minority. Cape San Blas, for the most
part, consists of tourist rentals and summer houses, therefore not many
students. The majority of the kids are from Port St. Joe, a town full of
fishing families. That’s closer to my caste level.
Beth,
from Honors English, belongs to one of those families. During Chem lab, she
sits beside me and has free reign to fill me in on all of the ins and outs of
my new school along with her entire life’s history. The instructor walked out
of the room minutes after class started, mumbling something about a mix-up of
his and Mrs. Peterson’s syllabi.
“What
do you have next? Oh, lunch of course and then Florida History,” she says after
I show her my schedule. “Jerome has that. He’s my step-brother and absolutely
nothing like me. He’s a sophomore too. Jerome cusses like a sailor, and he
thinks he has to wear this ugly, full-of-holes cap everywhere. Calls it his
holy hat.… Absolutely disgusting.”
I
stop listening as I peer at my new lab partner. Beth smiles all the time. She
scratches her head, she smiles. She bumps her elbow, she smiles. Her long, sandy
blonde hair tangles around a bolt on her chair, she smiles. Her freckles
stretch tightly across her face the more animated she becomes, and her top lip
sticks to her slightly bucked two front teeth with the lack of moisture.
She
has an entire one-sided conversation without questioning my lack of
participation. At her next words I figure out why.
“Isn’t
it just absolutely perfect that we’re lab partners? Mr. Christy is our debate
team sponsor, and I had to go back to his class after English. I asked him
about you. It’s totally fine that you don’t talk. The way I see it, we’ll get
along just absolutely perfect. I love
to talk.”
That
explains it. So maybe it’ll be harder than I thought to keep to myself. This
girl, while excessive, doesn’t seem like someone I can hate.
“I
noticed you highlighting things on Mr. Christy’s syllabus. You must like
reading.” At the nod of my head, she carries on as though she’s just swallowed
a Skittles rainbow, “Oh, I love reading. I even catch myself
reading brochures sometimes. You’ll love our library.”
I
perk up at that. Why not dig up some history on the B&B? And maybe a ghost
too. Real or imagined, that thing has stunned the sarcasm out of me three times
now.
Where’s the library?
I scribble on my notebook after the instructor walks back in and shushes
everybody.
Beth
writes her instructions in bubbly handwriting.
When
the bell rings, I head to the cafeteria and grab a slice of pizza. With
directions in hand, I make my way to the library, shoving the pizza in as fast
as I can, almost choking on the last bite. I wipe my greasy hands on my jeans
and walk through the library’s double doors. Immediately, a sign tells me
exactly what I need to know: Newspaper archives, thataway.
It
takes me a while to find an article containing the death of someone living at
the B&B. A couple and their son lived there a year ago while the husband
upgraded all the wiring, clearly not an easy feat with the size and age of the
house. Dang, it must have taken a while to do it for them to have moved in. So,
according to the article, fifteen-year-old Elliot Gibson drowned in the bay
while fishing with his dad one night.
I
analyze the small head and shoulders picture accompanying the article. Elliot
has dark, messy hair and an adorable boyish grin. Boyish. There’s no way that
what I’ve been feeling is from a fifteen-year-old.
The story continues on an inside page where
there is another picture. This one is black and white, so I can’t make out much
detail. I finish the article that says the circumstances were especially tragic
when the —oh, the stepfather—anyway, it says he had a hard time pointing the
emergency workers in the right direction. It seems he was so distraught that he
couldn’t remember exactly where they were on the beach. Finally, he remembered
it was actually the bayside, not the ocean side, where they were. Weird. I
guess those in power didn’t find it weird since the final ruling was still an
accidental drowning.
I
glance back up at the picture of Elliot. He’s leaning against a Jeep, his head
level with the top. He’s pretty tall—tall and lanky. Reminds me of Mr. Christy.
This can’t be my ghost, though. My ghost has much more experience “wooing”
women. Ick, what if he is forty or something? What am I worried about? It can
only be my imagination anyway, right?
Right?
As
I ready the papers to place them back in the bin, something catches my eye. On
the page facing the one I was just reading is a write-up about a parade.
There’s a picture of an old, tiny convertible and none other than Tate sits in
the driver’s seat. His sister presides like a southern debutante on the hood
with a white dress spread around her.
Tatum
Julius Von Loux III drove his sister, Katherine May Von Loux, in the 19th Annual
Seafood Festival Parade.
No
way! I’ve never in my life heard a more pretentious name, and why does the
paper run their full names? Oh, society section. Those names are insane though.
But, in Beth’s words, just absolutely perfect.
