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#1

Title: Sacred Blood
Genre: Young Adult, supernatural
Word Count: 87,000

Query:

Upon discovering her vicious ex-boyfriend is a werewolf, 18-year-old
Juliette St. Claire will risk her life to protect his enemies and the
new man she loves, a man harboring his own secret identity.

Juliette lives her existence resigned to her boyfriend, Nathaniel
Jensen's violent whims. After a particularly violent evening, she has
had enough, and a high window is her only chance at escaping with her
life. Desperate to live through the night, she flees.

Finally free, Juliette finds her best friend, but just when she needs
him the most, Tristan Larocque must leave. She learns that he is an
unusual breed of vampire who needs to find and warn a lost vampire
coven that they are in danger from Nathaniel, an instinctively violent
werewolf leader determined to abolish them. Rather than hide from the
danger her ex presents, Juliette, knowing what makes Nathaniel tick
and determined to keep Tristan safe, insists that she accompany him on
his mission.

Over the course of a multi-country journey to save the mysterious
coven, Juliette discovers she has more internal strength and courage
than she'd ever realized. She, the sole human, leads the vampires into
battle against the werewolves and discovers she alone holds the power
to destroy her terrible ex-boyfriend and to save the future of
vampires, or to spare his life.

SACRED BLOOD is a young adult supernatural manuscript complete at
87,000 words. While this manusript stands alone, a trilogy has been
outlined and the second manuscript has been written and is in rough
draft form.

First Page:

Frantic, Juliette St. Claire folded and packed football gear.  She
gasped, twitching at the slightest sound.  The jersey she needed was
still in the living room.  She sprinted to retrieve his shirt, hoping
he would be lenient.

"Hurry up, Stupid!  Me and the team have to take off.  Get my stuff
packed up!"  Nathaniel Jensen slugged Juliette’s arm as she hurried
past him, and smirked at her shocked scream as she crashed into the
cream wall and slunk to the ground.  A china vase fell from its
pedestal, dousing her in cold water.  He grabbed her arms and turned
her to face the hallway mirror.  "Do you like your eye?  Do you want
another?"

Juliette stared at the newest bruise darkening her eye.  She nodded
and shook her head in turn to his questions, longing to get away from
the hands hurting her.  Those hands turned her around and slapped her
across the face.

"You didn't answer me!  Did you like your ugly eye, and do you want
your other to match?"

 "N-n-no, S-S-Sir!" She wanted nothing more than for him to let go.
His fingers digging into her flesh were bruising her, and her punched
arm smarted.

Juliette’s side slammed into the wall again with another
malicious throw.
     
"Hurry up then, or you'll get worse!  Finish up!"

The injured woman ran as fast as she was able to continue gathering
and loading his gear, glad he was going to be gone for a week and
she'd have several days without physical pain.  The thought of
reprieve motivated her to keep standing.

With a last zip, the packing was finished.  Nathaniel snatched his
duffel bag up and pressed a finger hard against Juliette's chest.
"You better be good.  Break any rules and I will find out.  You’ll be
sorry if you do."

The wet kiss smashed to her lips caused a deep ache in Juliette's
heart, tempered only slightly by him walking out of the house.
Certain he wouldn't walk back in, she ran up the stairs and slammed
her bedroom door shut.  Hopeless, her trembling body dropped to the
bed.

She pressed her mouth into the eyelet-covered pillow and screamed
with all her might, but the tears still came.  Juliette pounded her
fists next to her head.

The cell phone on her nightstand beeped.  Nervous, Juliette checked
the new message.

Comments

  1. I will give myself my only comment just so I'm not the only one showing no comments. I guess this means I should toss this manuscript. To say I'm crushed is an understatement.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Me too Slys. I thought the same thing. I'm sorry!
    But yours wasn't the only one with no comment.

    Hugs to you. And please keep your chin up:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yo've had other agents interested. I've had more rejections than I want to think about without even a nibble.

      Delete
    2. I've been there. I am there right now. I've had fifteen years of rejections from one MS to the other, I haven't given up on any of them.

      The only person that commented on my entry suggested the very thing I'd done to my MS many times (as if I'd dare enter a contest before having it critiqued, let alone without an edit). And the one agent that apparently liked it didn't even bother to respond.

      Delete
  3. Don't toss it! Seriously! Each comp is sooooo different with different agents who have different tastes. There are times when I haven't gotten into the 2nd round with MS's then that same week in a different comp I've gone on to receive requests in a different comp. It just means you need to keep looking, that's all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Pull-to-publish" is the newest thing and more agents, for all the talk about wanting something unique, publishers apparently are favoring the "tried and true" fanfics. This gets into morally shaky ground. Unless I can rework Sacred Blood into something more like Twilight and 50 Shades (the current darlings), I don't see anyone picking up Sacred. But I can't stomach the thought of having Juliette end up with the guy who hurts her unless I can let her be abused as a way to open up frank dialog about how glorifying certain issues hurt real-life people.

      Delete
    2. Don't descend to that level!! Your story is better than that, and yo are a fantastic writer. Very gifted and talented. Maybe you can try a new genre? start a new series? Do anything but quit! Don't quit. Never give up. Never:)

      Delete
  4. I made comment. In fact, I made comment on every entry except #14 because there were, apparently, upload problems. For some reason, Talynn had to repost it and I still was unable to view it. Here's the thing; in this age of technology things still go awry. How do I know? Well, because I know yours was the first (because it was #1) that I commented upon. As you may, or may not know, Talynn was working her sweet self nearly to the bone to compile comments. My take is that you experienced what I experience at least once a week...the net is not a careful lover. It takes what - and where - it chooses. The good news is that you found out right away.

    If you'd like to contact me directly, I'll make comment on the comment you never received.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There were too many wrinkles in this! I am totally stressed over it all. I am NOT a tech nerd and have no idea what went wrong or why things just disappeared or wouldn't open up.

      I am so sorry for all the mix ups and problems. Next time, there will be no problems. I'll get a tech person to help me.

      Delete
    2. I don't have contact info for you. I'd really much rather hear my story sucks that to hear nada. Not knowing is the worst.

      I've also decided to revamp the opening chapters pretty heavily. Apparently domestic violence against a woman who is a stranger is common enough to no longer be shocking. This is terrible, but I have to work with society's views. So the new first chapter has a scene before this introducing her better, and the original first is now two chapters. Also the werewolf situation is no more. They're skin-walkers to help break from the Twilight connection so many people keep making.

      Also the embedded comment box with Blogger is buggy with Safari. If you're on Safari, download Chrome, and that'll solve the problem. I was trying for so long to comment on another Blogspot blog and finally found out some layouts with the embedded comment box don't work reliably with Safari, if at all. This is a known issue that's been going on for a long time.

      Talynn, if people are commenting and they're not showing, I suggest changing to the pop-out comment boxes. Those don't have the same issue.

      Delete

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