#5

Title: Deceptive Cadence
Genre: YA Contemporary with Time Travel elements
Word Count: 85,000

 

Query:

Cadence awakes in a hospital to find her husband and daughter dead, killed in a freak earthquake. So when her guardian angel appears and offers her a chance to go back in time with all the knowledge she has, she accepts, desperate to prevent their deaths.

She shoots back eleven years to her fourteen-year-old self, and faces high school all over again. She is determined to do everything better, including preventing the loss of her best friend, which broke her heart, and not dating any of her original, drama-inducing boyfriends. Her main focus is on her future husband, who she won’t meet for several years.

But James Gordon crosses her path. While she wishes to remain single, the bad boy pursues her. He threatens to disrupt everything that is to come as she begins to grow unwanted feelings for him, and distract her from her original goal: to save her future family.

First Page:

A steady beep brought me out of unconsciousness. My eyes felt heavy and I struggled to open them. There was a distinct aroma of cleaning products. My brain switched on as I realized where I was. I forced my eyes open and the beeping sped up. The walls were white in the hospital room, and directly across from me was a closed bathroom door. To my left was a brown couch under a window – which was covered by blinds – and to my right was a tan leather armchair. I was completely alone. Where was my family? My husband? My eighteen-month-old daughter?

I tried to sit up but my whole body writhed with pain. I moaned, and a second later a nurse, dressed in aqua scrubs, burst into the room. “It’s all right, just don’t move,” she said in a soothing voice.

I wanted to ask a million questions, but I couldn’t seem to form any words. She gently pressed me back onto the bed and checked me over. I watched her, as she avoided looking directly into my eye. I followed her movements which was when I became aware of the cast on my arm. My right leg was bound and raised in a sling and appeared to have large bolts sticking out of my thigh. “What happened?” I finally managed to utter.

The nurse slowed. “You have a fractured femur, ulna and radius. You also sustained substantial head trauma which is why you’ve been unconscious for the past few days.”

“Few days?” I groaned. “What day is it?”

“Thursday.”

“But how? The last thing I remember was... was...” I didn’t actually know. The Monday was a haze.

 “But how? The last thing I remember was... was...” I didn’t actually know. The Monday was a haze.