It’s time to pitch. I’m taking the first 200 pitches and then that’s it. If we don’t reach 200 by 5:00 pm EST and you have another completed manuscript you’d like to pitch, go for it.
If this is your first time hearing about THE SEASON’S PITCH CONTEST, please read the rules here first.
Judging editor: Peter Senftleben ~ Kensington
Judging agent: Kevan Lyon ~ Marsal Lyon Literary Agency
Top 10 pitches must submit the first 3 pages of manuscript and the completed manuscript to show proof of completion.
Winner(s) receive a 25 page critique.
If your entry is not selected, please feel free to query both Peter and Kevan on your own.
Top 10 pitches will be announced Tuesday, December 8th.
Please remember to include title, word length and genre on your entries. This is a must.
Contest closes at 9:00 pm EST.
Good Luck!
P.S. And after you’re finished posting your brilliant pitch, why don’t you stop by the site and vote for the Best Historical Cover of 2009.
Title:Love’s Soft Surrender
Genre: 1864 historical
Word Count: 75k
They say all is fair in love and war. That is until you meet a lady who lies, steals and cheats to gain her revenge.
Brianna is hell bent on avenging the death of her parents at the hands of Yankee soldiers. Using a clever disguise, she infiltrates a Confederate camp. Seriously injured and taken prisoner, her identity is discovered unexpectedly by, Yankee Captain Tristan Creighton.
Furious his fiancé has joined the enemy and shot his brother, Tristan soon finds his dedication to family and loyalty to country will face bitter challenges. From the trenches of West Virginia battlefields to the trenches of marriage they will contest their love for each other until the end.
No matter how much they try to deny it, their passion sizzles like liquid heat. Brianna and Tristan discover that passion will guide them to the point of…
JMLange
Title: Witchy Woman
Word Count: 84,000
Genre: Paranormal Romance
As a child, Stella Campbell knew that monsters were real. Unfortunately, no one believed her.
Now, thirteen years after fleeing the small town of Silverton, Georgia, she’s back and determined to slay the demons that haunt her.
If she can do this, can she finally have peace and happiness? With the help of Zane Weathers she just might get more than she ever dreamed possible.
Christiana Cameron
Title:Timeless
Genre:contemporary romance
Word Count: 90k
Two wounded souls torn apart by secrets and lies, bound by something stronger, something deeper, something timeless . . .
Attorney Nathan Hunt lives his life by a strict code: everyone lies. Even the beautiful woman he finds ensconced in his loft is no exception. Determined to learn her part in his father’s fraudulent scheme, Nathan makes her a proposition she can’t refuse. But getting close to Daniella Kirk leads to something Nathan never expects, and it’s not the lie that tears his heart apart but the truth.
Behind her lens, photographer Daniella Kirk keeps her world in focus, but her life has always been far from picture perfect. When one moment changes everything and Dani’s past blurs with her present, she must convince the only man she really loves to find some way to forgive her, to trust her, to love her.
Brynna James
Title:Incarnate
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Words Count: 80k
Cia knows her life isn’t normal, she’s an Incarnate, she has two souls one old and one new. She guards a portal which leads to heaven and hell and her portal is in the Canadian Arctic. Not exactly glamorous. Now, to make matters worse someone is killing off other Incarnates, her estranged husband Arthur is now a demon prince (and the prime suspect), and the killer’s next target is her. Cia has to prove Arthur’s innocence as well as protect her own hide and deal with her out of control older soul, Boudiccia. Yet, the cards are stacked against them, and it looks like judgment day is coming. As she races across the ice roads the world is being dragged to hell. Literally. And the one responsible is the very man who destroyed her in her past life. Payback is going to be a bitch.
Amy Ruttan
Title:Sisters by Choice Book I: Highland Captive
Genre: 12th century Humorous Historical Romance
Word Count: 97,000
English-born Lady Alera of Arundrydge, a resolute nurturer, bears The Gift of an ancient sorcerer to her mother’s clan. She wishes to avenge crimes against her family and find her missing father. Viking slavers steal her. She escapes only to be caught by Laird Duncan Ranald who decides to keep her. Escaping him becomes impossible as she helps his clan and he creeps into her heart. But if she stays, what will become of her father? Duncan is a domineering leader, who hates everything English. He rescues Alera from death and considers using her as a pawn of vengeance. Realizing she’s his soul mate, he decides to wed her. She refuses. He discovers her heritage. Will calling upon the laird of her mother’s clan to force marriage cause him to lose her forever?
Mary McCall
Title: Moon Child
Genre: Paranormal
Word Count: 82.4k
Centuries ago the Montgomery family made a pact with the Indian Nations, and Jack Winters is determined to break it. In this 82,400 word paranormal romance Moon Child, the words overheard by eight-year-old Jack—treaty, Moon Child, and enchanted—are mere ripples on the surface of a deeper lore. When Jack is newly adopted into the Montgomery family, he is spellbound by the otherworldly stare of his cousin Anwar Montgomery.
Anwar is a ruffian seated in the crook of a tree, eating cherries and deluging the children below in a hailstorm of pits. Jack mistakes her silence and unnerving stare for dislike, and is too shy to make friends. Eventually Jack and Anwar become inseparable, especially on nights of a full moon. As the years trundle on, Jack grows passionately consumed with understanding the mysterious references made by the family to the “Moon Child” and her connection to their prosperity.
Monica Peters
Title: Terms of Surrender
Genre: Revolutionary War-ear historical
Word count: 105k
Kate Chambers is a woman under pressure. Her father left the family farm in her hands when he joined the Vermont militia to fight the invading British. Her younger siblings are often more hindrance than help with the growing burden of chores. And now she’s just discovered an injured man in her hayfield.
Stephen Blackthorn is in search of a home in a world where he doesn’t belong. A deserter from the invading British army, Patriot and Loyalist alike view him as the enemy. Then Kate, ignorant of his identity, takes him in.
Will he find a place in her heart, or will the wider conflict drive them apart?
Aislinn Macnamara
Title: Courting Demons
Genre: Paranormal Romantic Suspense
Word Count: (70K)
When an impromptu vengeance spell cast to punish her cheating husband goes awry, Paisley Barton sets off a sequence of unfortunate supernatural events.
After her spell turns the philandering hubby into a sewer dwelling rodent and accidentally opens a portal between the human and demon worlds, things take a turn for the bizarre.
As punishment for her misuse of the black arts, her family home has become a nightly courtroom for settling disputes between demons of the underworld.
If that’s not enough, now she must deal with a charming ancient demon named Camden who wants to be her personal bodyguard while trying to explain her husband’s sudden mysterious disappearance to sexy, young police Detective Dalton Briggs.
In this “Erin Brockovich meets Charmed” paranormal romantic legal suspense, Paisley must use her skills as an everyday working mother to manage the mystical mayhem while learning to be single once again.
Title: Listen to Your Heart
Genre: Regency historidal
Word Count: 85,000
As a boy, Jeremy St. Regis was rescued from the London docks and given a life of privilege. but his twin sister died before he could save her. Cassandra Rentham, the beautiful daughter of a duke, reached out to him when no one else would. They fell in love, but untitled and unworthy, he fled. Five years later, he returns, powerful and rich. But her family insists she marry an arrogant viscount determined to ruin Jeremy. When Jeremy learns his long-lost sister is alive, Cassandra must defy all convention and risk her life to free him from his past and win his love. He must prove himself worthy of embracing happiness with the one woman who loves him for the man he truly is. But can they find love despite the viscount’s desire for revenge?
Miranda Liasson
He is a ruthless and cunning killer who wants whatever Officer Cord Bennett has and what he has is Samantha Russo.
Samantha’s life is finally on track. She’s moved on from the devastating loss of her fiancé and has the career of her dreams as a prosecutor. When a strange letter and phone calls send her life off course, she believes she’s being stalked by someone related to a defendant she’s prosecuting. But she soon learns from Cord that a serial killer is stalking her and he’s the cause.
As the true target of the killer’s wrath, Cord knows he should keep his distance from Samantha, but he can’t let her go. Now the closer he gets to Samantha, the closer the killer gets.
Bitter Rivalry is an 80,000 word romantic suspense.
A Demon’s Redemption
(88,061 Word Paranormal Romance)
Lorelei is your typical college student – who happens to have a talent for sniffing out demons and sending them back to hell, kind of like a psychic bloodhound. But once a year, she must help one of the fallen earn their way back into heaven. How do they do that? By atoning for their sins. And so far, everything is working out for her – until she meets Azazel, son of Azazeal, a member of the Underworld hierarchy. Does the demon fall far from the seed? She has a month to find out.
Azazel has always lived in the shadows of his father’s misdeeds. But redemption is his one chance to break free of his father’s sins. If only he hadn’t promised to bring down Lorelei for his bid for freedom. Will he keep his promise to his father – or to the woman he comes to love?
Title: Guardian’s Revenge
Genre: paranormal erotic romance/an Amazon Western
Word Count: 89K
Welcome to the New West…
Thais lost her mother, her queen, and her tribe, but the young Amazon with vengeance in her heart refuses to lose anything else. She’ll bring back the queen’s stolen crown or die trying. Life in the Territories has its own perils – the Nature Laws, carnivorous horses, treacherous men who survived the Time of Dying. One man in particular, a warrior in his own right, has an odd effect on her senses. Thais feels desire for the bounty hunter, but she can’t trust it. Men are good for war and breeding, neither of which she has time for, not when she’s so close to finding those who stole the crown. In the course of her journey, she’ll find much more than atonement for her troubled past, but a pure and true love, if only she has the courage to accept it.
Marie Harte
Title: Cupid and a Toolbelt
Wordcount: 105K
Genre: Humorous Women’s Fiction
Naïve grad-student lacking design skills finds herself in the middle of a do-it-yourself home improvement TV reality show. Shell-shocked by fiancé infidelity, the job was a way to strike out in a new direction. Which means renovation tasks that could expose her as an imposter, vengeful diva, color-blind designer, and enigmatic colleague who inspires strictly professional feelings since he has a girlfriend and it’s too soon after the fiancé disaster for romance – right? Plus, her idolized older sister is engulfed in a married-with-kids crisis and a friend is determined to think of a new reality show even if it kills him. Literally. By the time mild kidnapping, unpredictable animals, eco-activist co-worker, wardrobe malfunction, and the burning question: ‘Paint or wallpaper?’ have been dealt with, the show’s future hangs in the balance of sweeps week. Now more confident and self-aware, the heroine too must decide how she wants her HEA to look.
Scandal’s Mistress – Regency Noir
87,000 words.
Love. It’s the cruelest mistress of all. When you have it, it hurts. When you lose it, it nearly kills you. But what if he doesn’t believe in it and she doesn’t want it…
Italian opera singer, Carmalina Belluccini, has been alone with her bad luck and morbid thoughts for too long. When a man who is no angel offers her a carte blanche, she is torn. No longer the naive girl who came to London to be famous and, with no reputation left after singing for a living, she has nothing to fear from the gossiping Ton. Having lost her beautiful voice to a winter ailment and then robbed of every valuable possession, she finds herself in a position too difficult to refuse Justin Trentham’s protection. But what is he hiding and why is he desperate to create the scandal of the season?
Title: Chinese Bride
Genre 1870 historical
Word Count: 85K
Torn from her homeland, a woman discovers the love of her life.
Chua Hiuann arrives in America expecting to meet her future husband, but soon learns she’s been purchased by a tong boss as a high-end prostitute, her virginity to be sold to the highest bidder. She escapes her fate and is given shelter by storekeeper Alan Sommers, a man haunted by wartime demons.
Together they learn to communicate and their mutual attraction grows into love. But Hiuann’s fiancé is not going to let her go so easily. Before the lovers can live happily ever after, they must overcome evil and find their literal and figurative freedom.
After The Loving – Georgian romance
105,000 words
Notorious Pirate…
Marcus Thorne wants only one thing: uncover the secrets of the Royal Navy, and exact the perfect revenge. Disguised as a pirate, life goes smoothly until he captures the lovely Isabelle Stanhope, and a different form of revenge comes to mind; plunder her virginity in payment for what her father stole from him.
An Inquisitive Lady…
Sailing to New York and the arms of a fiancé she’s never met, Isabelle should be quaking with fear when the masked pirate takes her prisoner. Instead, his touch and kisses make her giddy with excitement. Unable to resist she gives in to passion, and wants nothing more than to convince him she’s a better prize than what he seeks from the Royal Navy.
With revenge, arranged marriages, and furious fathers as adversaries, can these two really find love?
Phyllis Campbell
Title: And Then I Loved Him
Genre: Victorian Historical with a paranormal element
Word Count: 98,000
Caitlyn MacGregor possesses a brilliant mind—and second sight. Confined to her Highland home by a disturbed mother, life is lonely, but peaceful. Peaceful that is, but for a recurring nightmare of a man attacking her. What Caitlyn’s second sight fails to reveal is that beneath this distorted vision lies her destiny.
Her mother’s death sets Caitlyn free. She heads for an English cousin, hoping to gain a family. Nearing her destination, the carriage overturns. The man of her nightmares rescues her.
He is Valentin, a Russian royal trading a treacherous life for one in England’s quiet countryside. Both the Russian secret police and England’s government seek to engage Valentin as a spy in the Crimean war. He attempts to avoid both.
As different and alike as the sun and the moon, Valentin and Caitlyn become lovers. Tragedy strikes, tearing them apart. Caitlyn’s second sight becomes their only connecting link.
Kathleen Bittner Roth
Title: Benevolence
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Word Count: 85,500
When her father’s mysterious suicide leaves her family destitute, sixteen-year-old Lizzie Stone moves into an old, rundown house in a new town. After a series of odd, unexplainable occurrences, Lizzie consults a psychic medium and discovers her room is haunted by the ghost of William Miller, a seventeen-year old Patriot murdered by British soldiers during the Revolution.
Scared but intrigued, Lizzie learns William is a Muse, a powerful spirit dedicated to advancing human achievement, and fighting the Malevolents, evil spirits who torment humanity. Lizzie assumes she’s William’s latest Muse project, and revels in spending time with the handsome, kind, and generous spirit with whom she’s falling in love.
Lizzie is shocked to discover she’s actually the reincarnation of his wife, Elspeth. Reunited at last but separated by circumstance, William must use his powers to ensure that, this time, they stay together forever.
Lea Nolan
Title: The Land of Imagining
Genre: Fantasy YA
Word Count: 80,000
A magical pen unleashes a young teen’s power to control another world, a realm only she can save from evil.
Fifteen-year-old Alexia Streaming dreams of becoming a best selling novelist, but when she uses Artex’s magical pen to describe a world of Imagining, inhabited by a race called the All-Knowers, she unknowingly unleashes a hidden power within her — the ability to control the All-Knowers with that same pen. She is the All-Knowers’ Savior, the one who will destroy the Miroir Diabolique and Its minions. With the help of Artex, Alexia travels to the Land of Imagining where, against enormous odds, she must learn who she is before she can face the greatest evil the All-Knowers have ever seen.
Nicole Zoltack
Title: Fatal Visions
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 75,000
Possessed of a highly sensitive telepathic gift, Amy O’Connor has spent most of her life locked away from others. Unable to break the silence forced on her, Amy’s only real interaction with the outside world is through a killer— a link that stretches back to her childhood. Tormented by dreams of blood and murder, there is nothing she can do to stop the monster.
Blowing up his lab was the only way scientist J.C. Nikolaiev knew to stop the psychic experiments. What he hadn’t expected was that his impulsive actions would start up another string of unsolved murders. When J.C. starts hearing a voice in head asking for his help, he is unsure what to believe.
Together, J.C. and Amy must work together to find a predator who seems to always be one step ahead of them… and he’s closer than they ever expected
Title:A Pocketful of Ashes
Genre:Historical gothic romance
Word Count: 93k
The past will not stay dead at Tremayne Hall.
When Jessa Palmer journeys to rescue her late half-sister’s daughter from a tyrant of a father, she discovers someone—or something—wants to ensure she is no more successful at escaping the castle on the cliffs than her half-sister, Lily, had been.
Launched on her rescue mission by a mysterious letter, Jessa follows in Lily’s footsteps to a grim castle in the wilds of Cornwall and into the arms of its dark master, Captain Dashiell Tremayne. Bitter, brooding, and tragically scarred, he believes Jessa is a carbon copy of her manipulative, unfaithful half-sister; he’s not about to let another treacherous woman into his home—or into his heart.
When the accidents begin, the danger intensifies, as does the heat between Jessa and Dash; soon, she’ll have to make a choice—follow Lily to a fiery death, or surrender to a man she cannot trust.
Title: Forever Freed
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Word Count: 96,000
When empathic vampire Lucien Demarco unexpectedly falls in love with a single mother he planned to kill and her young daughter, he struggles against his ancient feelings of unworthiness and against his driving bloodlust.
Samantha Sutton and her daughter Olivia, abandoned by Olivia’s father and alone following the deaths of Sam’s parents, see something special and compelling in the mysterious but quietly kind man who moves into the old house across the street.
As the relationship between the three of them deepens, Lucien struggles to reveal his true nature to them without destroying the only chance for love, fatherhood, and family he’s ever had. But when his dark past catches up with him and an old vampire rival threatens to take his newfound happiness away, Lucien must reveal the truth to save his girls and hope they can accept him for who and what he is. (146 words)
Title: Redemption
Genre: romantic suspense
Word count: 100,000
Four years ago, a sadistic rape robbed Angela of her trust in men and her sexuality. Now, she has a successful business and a new life, sans love or sex. Haunted by her inability to identify the rapist, she wants only to be left alone—until a shadowy stranger reignites dormant desires. But Angela’s journey to sexual recovery may be brief because someone wants her dead.
His targets deserved to die. That belief had always mitigated Jake’s guilt. Until now. When greed tempts the former hitman out of retirement, he finds himself falling in love with the emotionally scarred woman he has been hired to kill. Despite knowing he must eventually consummate the contract, Jake struggles to restore Angela’s sexuality. He seeks redemption by searching for the person behind the contract. When the trail leads him into the carnal underbelly of L.A., the truth shocks even the hardened hitman.
The Horse Charmer
Young Adult Fantasy with Romantic Elements
Word Count: 64,000
Princess Cassia’s world is changed forever when her father is murdered and she runs away before she is to marry a neighboring prince. Horse Wrangler Luki, her secret crush, agrees to help her find out who killed her father and why as Cassia discovers her unique ability to charm horses. Nothing is as simple as it seems with political intrigue and unusual powers shadowing Cassia on her search for the truth.
Title : Broken
Genre : Paranormal YA
Word count : 90,000
Sometimes breaking Heaven’s law is worth it, even if it means Hell’s waiting for you.
When her father’s misdeeds and her mother’s mental collapse force her to transfer before Senior year, Sarah Armstrong thinks Wenham High School might be the perfect spot to forget her past and start new. Too bad the Massachusetts town happens to be the ancient stomping ground for Hell’s demons and Heaven’s angels. At the center of it all is the enigmatic Caleb Smith, but Sarah finds an unlikely hero in the sullen, bad boy rocker. Every time Caleb saves her from a demon’s snare, she chips away at his façade to find more than a man, but an angel she’s willing to lose not only her heart over but also her soul.
BROKEN is a 90,000 word YA paranormal filled with Guitar Hero angels, Fashionista demons, and a forbidden love that tests Heaven’s boundaries.
Title: Freedom and Magnolias
Genre: Women’s Fiction with Romance and Suspense
Word Count: 102,000
Sometimes we search for a second chance in life and other times we don’t even know there’s been a first one.
Situated in Washington, D.C. and small-town America, Freedom and Magnolias, is the story of antique buyer Maggie Donovan and CIA Operative Reese Trenton. Two people following their own paths until a chance encounter awakens their souls to might-have-been and maybe…
Maggie sets out to discover herself, and finds Peaceful Lake, Missouri, where she tackles town rivalries to save not only herself, but future generations. Commitment to love again requires she trust the evasive man who always protects her. Reese’s career is simple—go on missions, dodge bullets, avoid capture—but the sass of a brown-eyed woman, and magnolias have become a complication. While his life ebbs on an Afghanistan hillside, a long-past conversation finally becomes clear and he discovers he’s always had a choice, not an obligation.
Title: Into the Fire
Genre: Paranormal historical romance
Word count: 105,000
The ribbons between the seven realms are set to snap, and the pillars between worlds crumble, spilling black magic onto earth and the first dimension.
Hunted by evil. Fueled by revenge. Bound by duty. Dorion Traquair is charged with protecting the first dimension from destruction. Leader to one of the Guardian clans, he must bring the sacred sphere home before his enemy uses its power to destroy mankind.
Modern day architect Renee Aston lives and breathes her motto: never give up, never give in, and never surrender. Tossed from her own time into another by the gods, she is forced to rely on one man for survival—a fate she abhors and will fight with unfailing resolve.
A warrior bred to power and born to protect. A woman sent by the gods to help him rebuild. Together, they will overcome every obstacle to thwart the ancient evil threatening their world.
Title: Not Enough
Author: Lisa Hill lisa@lisa-hill.com
Genre: Regency
Word Count: 93,000
When Isabella mistakenly believes Michael, the earl she loves, has abandoned her, she marries Baron Richard Holt. Richard quickly reveals himself as an abusive, adulterous, alcoholic, and does his best to devastate the gentle Isabella.
Michael returns from war, and begins to spend time with Isabella, trying to protect her within society’s constraints. Isabella’s love resurfaces and she finds herself tempted to engage in an affair with the ever honorable earl.
But fate takes a hand.
Richard is killed while fleeing a duel. Isabella finds healing during her year of mourning and weds Michael. Their bliss is interrupted when Michael learns that Richard is alive. The baron agrees to remain in hiding for a price. Michael, a man of unwavering integrity, much choose between living a lie, and losing the woman he loves to a monster.
Highly emotional with a tear-filled happy ever after!
Title: Forest and Ocean
Genre: Women’s Fiction/Southern Fiction/African-American Lit
Word Count: 80,000
Forest and Ocean is a story is about Selah Matthews, a black girl being raised in a small Southern town by Conrad Matthews. Conrad is not her biological father, but a quiet white man who once loved Selah’s mother. As Selah struggles through her last year in high school, she meets two boys who challenge her. One wants her to see the world; the other wants her to appreciate all that she has. Conrad is reminded of how he met and fell in love with Selah’s mother as he sees Selah dealing with first love, first “almost” love, and the desire to go away for college.
My mother’s favorite story growing up was Heidi. Forest and Ocean is my Heidi story, and I hope it is novel where concepts like love, race, and redemption are understated, but still present.
Nicki Harris
Who knew opening an antique chest would unleash Hell’s minions? Then again, when the chest’s labeled Arca Infernorum, beautician Lucia Gregory should’ve known better. Overnight, she turns into a sexpot. Men, including her gay coworkers, fawn over her. Only one is immune—Rafael Deleon, a broodingly sexy man who says he’s a demon.
As a demon protector of Limbo, Rafael’s sent to retrieve the chest before it’s opened. He’s too late. Hell’s unleashed in the most unlikely of places—a suburban salon. What’s worse—Lucy, a beautiful succubus, has no clue about the power she posesses. Being a demon, he should be able to resist, but that resistance is slipping—when he needs it most.
When an evil demon threatens them, Rafe’s hell-bent on protecting Lucy, who’d rather fight than hide. Sparks fly as they fight their growing attraction. Will they admit they need each other before it’s too late?
SUCCUBUS UNLEASHED, a humorous paranomral romance, is complete at 100K words.
Title: Zackly Right
Genre: Romance
Word Count: 98,000
Dare-devil private investigator Marley Dunbaughro fakes her way into reclusive day trader Zack Pennimon’s apartment as a stripper. Once in, he won’t let her out. Not because he wants her to be his love slave, which he does, but because the men who want to murder Zack are waiting outside.
Zack hires Marley as his bodyguard when nothing else will keep her in where it is safe, but it doesn’t work the way he expects. Where Zack relies on barricades, Marley goes after anyone who might be a threat. Her method has been known to literally put her in pickle brine, but she has always considered the risks well worth it. At least, she does until she talks Zack into taking a few too many chances.
Title: Scandal Sheets
Genre: Regency-set historical romance
Word count: 83,000
What’s the harm in a little white lie? Especially when it could carry so much good: a new life for a wounded soldier, catharsis after long years of war—and an opportunity for lady composer Olivia Delancey to finally hear her music played in public.
Her target, publisher Will Marsh, bucked the system by refusing to take money to print propaganda in his newspaper. But with peace at hand, circulation is dropping—as are the paper’s profits. Why not take a risk and publish the score of the “Tune that Took Waterloo,” by a wounded vet, no less?
As Olivia struggles to keep her secrets from this unsuitably alluring news-man, and Will fights to find the real story without losing hold of the beguiling woman shielding it, both discover another sort of truth.
Being the talk of London can be bad—or very, very good.
Forget Me Not
Word Count: 93,500 (Regency)
Lydia Covington has adored Irishman Brian Donnelly for years, but he’s a retired soldier with no connections—hardly suitable for the daughter of Britain’s next Prime Minister. Worse, she’s engaged to the slovenly Viscount Northbridge.
Orphaned at the age of two, Brian vowed long ago to be satisfied in a life without love. However, one glance at the beautiful Lydia, and he fell hopelessly in love.
After witnessing a brutal murder, Lydia and Brian are kidnapped and whisked to northern England. Narrowly escaping certain death, the two race through the countryside, evading ruthless pursuers and untangling a web of deception.
Brian’s goal remains focused—see Lydia safely home. She, however, is content to stay lost, tripping through the countryside with her handsome Irish protector. Can Lydia convince Brian to take a chance on love? Or will Brian close his heart to the one woman who could change his life forever?
Title: Seduced in Darkness
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 85,000
Pitch: Rosalynn Monroe has until her twenty-fifth birthday to decide whether she lives or dies. Rosalynn may be one of the best slayers New York City has to offer, but she can’t escape Andrey, the city’s evil master vampire. Obsessed with Rosalynn, Andrey is determined to make her his queen on her twenty-fifth birthday unless she can thwart him. She’s suffered his sexual games for years, and she’s finally reached her breaking point. Though her body delights in his carnal expertise, he challenges everything she holds dear. Her only hope is another slayer, Marcus Dale, a man who lives on the edges of polite society and seems to hold Rosalynn in low regard. Marcus makes her an offer that’s nearly impossible to refuse, a chance to escape from Andrey for good. Torn between a fatal love and a seductive enemy, she must try to save her soul and defeat this vampire who won’t take the word no for an answer.
KB Edwards
Title: Courting Scandal
Genre: Regency Historical
Word Count: 93,000
Courting Scandal is a Regency era battle of the sexes between London’s unofficial queen of wild schemes, Lady Amelia Spencer, and James, the reserved Duke of Thornhill. The battle begins when
James’s marriage-minded aunt and his four teenage sisters invade his home. Desperate to remove his family from London, he turns to Amelia only to find himself at the center of her latest plan—one that might result in his engagement to a noted wallflower. Hoping to evade Amelia’s misguided scheme, he vows to outwit her, even if it means creating a monstrous scandal.
Over the course of their battle, James finds that she might be the one woman who is strong enough to bind herself to the man behind his illustrious title. For her part, Amelia has little interest in the lofty peer, but can she resist the compassionate white knight that lies beneath the rigid veneer?
Title: Eye of the Storm
Genre: Paranormal
Word count: 80,000
A woman on the run, a man caught in a tragic past. Together they’ll uncover a network of lies and discover a new path to love… if they live long enough.
A chance encounter with the wrong man at the wrong time lands Katlin in a world of trouble. Psychically implanted with information she shouldn’t have, she barely avoids being killed. Luck has her running into Ryker, an ex-bodyguard with secrets of his own. Thrown into a world of chaos, where Tracers mentally track her, “black energy” roams freely, and ghosts warn of impending danger, Katlin discovers she has hidden talents that tie her past to her future with no way to escape.
Ryker must face his own demons to save the sexy redhead. If he’s not careful, his fears will destroy any chance at their happiness. For the enemy is closer than either can possibly know.
Title: Mistress Of The Stone
Genre: Paranormal Historical
Word Count: 75k
Luísa Tavares pirates the world on every sea but one. When a pockmarked Frenchman hands her Papa’s ring still attached to his severed finger, she orders the Coral back to the Caribbean despite her father’s earlier warning not to return.
It’s Luísa’s luckless fate that the only man who can help her find her father is a blasted Inglês pirate hunter, more dead than alive, and locked in a curse only she can lift.
Xander Daltry hadn’t planned on kidnapping this wild woman, but he needs Luísa, and the moonstone that is tied to her to rescind a spell that traps his dead sister and others like her on a cursed island. He means to set their souls free.
Luísa resolves to help Daltry until the werewolves on the island force her into a monstrous trade. In return they offer payment in full. Her father.
Title: Adam’s Wings
Genre: Paranormal
Word Count: 69,250
They call themselves fairy. But it does little to explain what they are. They sport wings, which are never seen by the humans. Adam and Eve wander the world, seeking suitable humans for metamorphosis. It is the key to fairy survival. They set a lure with a deeply suggestive painting at a science fiction/fantasy convention and catch Linda.
She didn’t know her one night of wild passion with the charming Adam would see her life changed, or give birth to wings. She struggles to survive as a new fledgling, learning the rules that govern the fairy, discovering within herself a magic deeper than Adam or Eve even imagined. Her life, and that of her husband, spirals into an inescapable conclusion; Linda is the miracle they have been seeking for millennium. Her passion gives rise to new hope, if she survives the challenges of those who refuse to believe or see.
Title: Native Spirits
Genre: Historical Romance
Word Count: 71, 777
Pitch:
Spirit Warrior’s heart is broken when he returns to his village to find it destroyed and most of the women taken. The white man came and raided the village taken only the women, while he was out of the buffalo hunt.
How could he go on without his beloved Speckled Butterfly? Now he would have to make the decision of what to do since his father, the chief of his people, gave him the rite of passage to determine how to rescue their people.
He was determined not to let his people down. He would rescue his people given the path he had chose to walk. His spiritual guide would assist him in this. The white owl would deliver him messages through his dreams, leading him to his destiny, which would be revealed in his Native Spirits.
Title: When a Heart Dares
Genre: Historical Romance 1850’s
Word Count: 101,000
Celine Kirkland lands in a sticky predicament involving two cousins, Trevor and Cameron Andrews, wealthy partners in a family shipping business. She decides the only solution is to leave New Orleans. She makes plans to sail to San Francisco aboard one of their ships.
Trevor and Cameron, handsome, intelligent, and filled with rakish mischief, are as close as twins in looks and deeds. Both are drawn to independent and lovely Celine. Only one captures her heart. Their lifelong brotherhood, once an unbreakable bond, sinks in a sea of bad blood, devastating her.
When Celine discovers the cousin she secretly loves plans to captain the clipper she will sail on, she panics and runs the other way. With him in hot pursuit, she joins a pioneer family on a perilous journey by wagon train, only to run smack into Blackfoot Indians who snatch her away right under the man’s nose.
Title: A Most Unusual Lady
Genre: Victorian Historical Romance
Word Count: 105,000
Lady Edwina von Seeburg, smart, independent and sassy daughter of an Austrian count, turns Victorian London on its ear with her unruly antics. Men adore her. However, she has a dark secret and avoids them at every turn. A gifted artist, she throws her wild passions into her work.
Lord Worthington has two loves in his life: the city of Venice, and his prized horses. He also avoids two things: assuming his father’s duties, and marriage. When he returns to London after years in Venice, he kidnaps the sister of an old arch-enemy. Trouble is, he has never met her and mistakenly captures her friend—feisty Lady Edwina. He discovers a woman who not only sets his soul afire, but who shares his love of horses and Italy. She, however, is flabbergasted by their volatile chemistry. When Worthington begins a relentless, mischievous pursuit of Edwina, she runs the other way.
Kathleen Bittner Roth
Title: The Changed World
Genre: Futuristic Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 80k
There she was, dancing across the floor. The daughter stolen from Ivy nearly twenty years ago. The disguised mercenary did not know what to do, how to react. Instantly, her head filled with the months prior to the birth, when Ursus taunted her with his plans. To keep the baby, to force her to bear more…to continue the never ending nightmare of his presence.
She’d had no choice but to run. To abandon the baby, to flee.
In the Changed World, children were rare, women who were fertile, valuable. Ivy saw Helen, and pictured her rapist. Saw her child and knew only fear. The child of Ursus, the warlord guilty of genocide, of killing Ivy’s entire race. Her mind stilled, to stay and use this girl to kill Ursus? Or to leave, before he knew she was in his reach once more. Danger lurked in both decisions.
2nd entry
Title: The Pawn
Genre: romantic suspense
Word count: 112,000
Amber Jollett is caught in a life-and-death chess match of intrigue, murder, and seduction as the FBI chases a money launderer and a drug cartel kingpin. In a world where nothing is what it seems, she’s deceived and manipulated as an unwitting pawn in both her boss’s criminal activities and the FBI’s investigation. She struggles against the chaos, including a vicious sexual assault by the drug lord. As time is running out, the Pawn must choose who to trust, who to help, and who to love.
FBI Special Agent Ben Alfren pursues bad guys with a passion. Desperate to decipher the clues to her boss’s money laundering operation, he aims that passion at Amber, only to have it take on an entirely different meaning. When he confronts her with the truth about the mayhem enveloping her, will Ben have to sacrifice the pawn to win the game?
Title: Warrior’s Revenge
Genre: Historical romance
Word count: 97,000
Marked for death, an orphan longs for a safe haven. What she gets is the last thing she wants—a ruthless warlord with a score to settle.
Lady Aurora de Marquise needs an escape plan. Ingenuity gains her freedom from her uncle. Providence sets her on a collision course with Brigham de Mornay. Wary of his charm, she refuses his advances. When he pursues, she brings him to his knees, unaware he is lord of the sanctuary she is desperate to claim. Forced to confront her mistake, Aurora must learn to trust a man most consider a monster.
Lord Brigham de Mornay is a man with a reputation. Ruthless, he pursues all his desires, including Aurora de Marquise. When the vixen leaves him injured and stranded in the woods without his horse, he vows revenge. He never imagines she will engage his warrior soul and capture his well-defended heart.
2nd entry
According to the rules for the pitch contest, if there aren’t 100 entries by 5:00, authors can post another story? I hope so, because I have a few more….
The Sweetest Temptation – Regency
93,000 words
The moment Lord Trey Worthington holds the beautiful woman in his arms, her luscious lips tempt him. When he discovers the young woman is his mother’s new ward, Judith Faraday, he vows not to use his roguish charms on her again, but having sampled her passion, he wants more. His promise to help Judith find her missing fiancé does not numb his desire for her.
Judith Faraday wants only one thing – marry her Naval Officer and enjoy a life of love. She’s doubtful her dream will come true living as ward to the dowager duchess. The longer Judith is with Trey, the more attraction blossoms. Now locating her intended does not seem so important. Can she reform a notorious rake into a suitable husband? Perhaps, but first she must win his heart.
Will the officer win Judith? Or, will the rake reform and become all she’s ever dreamed of?
Yep, those are the rules. 🙂
My Heart’s Desire – paranormal mystery/time travel
90,000 words
Nicholas Marshal refuses to let the sex scandal that rocked Hollywood ruin his law career. Clients are off limits. However, the first day in his new office, a beautiful woman, claiming to be a ghost from 1912, begs for help solving her murder. Resistant to believe, Nick is intrigued and finds himself tracking down history, and falling in love.
Abigail Carlisle is tired of her ghostly existence. Now that she’s found the man her gypsy grandmother spoke of, her murder can be solved, and she can cross over. However, the more she’s with Nick, the more entangled her heart becomes. But how can happily ever after happen when she’s already dead?
A strange turn of events whisks Nick back to 1912–before she’s killed. Can he solve a crime yet to be committed and save the woman he loves? Or will history repeat itself the second time around?
I’m just going to post this to see what time it is there =) It’s simply the easiest way…
Bron.
In STONE KISSED, an 85,000 word paranormal romance, a modern witch seduces a treasure hunter and battles a succubus for control of her ancestral estate.
When an arsonist torches her childhood home in rural Virginia our protagonist returns to care for her badly burned, comatose father. In order to pay the exorbitant medical bills she is forced to sell the magical estate to an irresistible, if cold-hearted treasure hunter. By persuading him to let her oversee restoration of the house, she keeps her heart and hands in the property, which feeds her unique and growing power to animate statues and speak to faces carved in stone. Her cousin, the succubus, however, will stop at nothing—from arson to marriage to murder–to possess both the man and the land.
Title: After the End
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Word Count: 75k
Zombies are on the loose and the world is falling apart.
In the tradition of apocalyptic novels such as Stephen King’s THE STAND, a group of strangers on a Manhattan subway are brought together in the name of survival. Nineteen-year-old Ari Brenner doesn’t recognize his own leadership qualities and believes the group follows him simply because he’s wearing an army uniform while home on leave. Lila Teske, a college student studying philosophy and comparative religions, finds her non-violent Buddhist beliefs tested in the crucible of a zombie attack. There are other members of the diverse group, but the focus of the story is on Ari and Lila, two young people who learn about sacrifice and inner strength through the ordeal.