Michelle Hauck's Blog, page 26

Sun versus Snow Thoughts

Once again Sun versus Snow was a fantastic success with over a hundred requests and a success story already, and maybe some more in the works! Wink, wink! 

I think some of the new aspects to the contest worked out extremely well. Adding a place for optional twitter handles certainly made less work for the hosts. For example, we are able to easily notify authors when requests arrived a few days after the official end of the agent round. Anything that makes less work for Amy and I is a bonus!

I also think that allowing authors to include ownvoices with their genres helped make up for excluding the biographies. Now the authors can help us know if their stories are ownvoices so Amy and I no longer have to be unsure.

I was delighted that we received nearly 20 of these entries and seven out of thirty-two finalists were ownvoices! I hope to see those numbers grow with every contest!

The mentors and agents were delightful and enthusiastic as always! And I can't wait for next year!



That said I want to announce that I'm taking a few weeks away from blogging to focus on my WIP and get some rest. I'll be back when I have more contest news to share! Thanks everyone!  

Sun versus Snow Agent Round 2017!

Today is the day our 21 amazing agents can begin reading the entries and making requests. Not only will they see the amazing entries here, but they can also make requests for Team Sun over at Amy Trueblood's blog!
As the agents move through the entries, please remember that contests are subjective. Our agents have a definitive idea of what they would like for their list. If they do not request, it DOES NOT mean the entry was not worthy. No matter what happens, you’ve got to keep querying and NEVER GIVE UP!  Before Team Snow freezes out Team Sun, here are some guidelines to remember:  There is no commenting in this round except for agents. Sorry, but no cheerleading as this may lead to an unconscious bias.  We are happy to see and retweet your thoughts and cheers over on Twitter under the #sunvssnow tag! That’s the place to hang out and have fun! I hope to see my Team Snow members present with their snow hats and mittens! We have a blizzard of amazing entries that are going to completely obscure Team Sun!

  Watch both my and Amy’s Twitter feed as we will be tweeting when an agent makes an appearance!  Agents will consider entries at both the blogs regardless of whether they are Sun or Snow fans. Amy and I are hoping the agents go crazy with the requests! There is amazing talent on both our teams!  Good luck to all! And get out your snowballs and thermals because Team Snow is taking no prisoners!

SVS Agent Round 1: NOTORIOUS, Adult Historical Mystery

Title: NOTORIOUS
Genre: Adult Historical Mystery
Word Count: 75,000
Is Your Main Character hot or cold?
Even in summer, the wind off San Francisco Bay drives the mist through your clothes until the damp lies frigid under your skin. Some nights, Vespertine dreams of life in the sun atop one of the seven hills of the city, but not tonight.
She draws her heavy shawl tight and prays the westerly clears the confusion from her mind. No hot act of passion will solve Mr. Founar's murder, only a determined application of logic will organize the facts of the case into a solution like a winter freeze crystallizes mist into snowflakes.  
Query: 
Team Snow,
In gold-rush San Francisco, desperate people come to the Women's Benevolent Society for help. The ones with legal troubles come to see Vespertine Clement. She never expected Mrs. Adler, a wealthy director of the Society, to summon her to solve a crisis: the Society had arranged lodgings for a fallen woman, who was discovered kneeling over the corpse of a man, blood smeared on her mouth and hands.
Accompanied by the amiably corrupt Sergeant Cuinn, Vespertine accepts Mrs. Adler's challenge to solve the murder. Not every one approves: the coroner refuses to cooperate with a woman investigator, the accused cannot speak, and Vespertine's uncle just wants her to settle down and blend in.
Vespertine believes the victim was poisoned before his throat was slit. With a chemistry text from her uncle’s book shop, and some glass tubing borrowed from the dye makers, she arranges a test of her theory, with an audience, in the police station. When the test fails, she only has four days to discover what happened that night to save the Society from ruin and a woman from the gallows.
Readers who liked The Agency mysteries by Y.S. Lee or the Sally Lockhart books by Philip Pullman should enjoy this book.
First 250 Words:
Fortunate people didn't end up at the San Francisco Women's Benevolent Society, desperate people did. The gold strike at Sutter's Mill five years ago created a few of the former and a multitude of the later. The hungry came for a hot meal, the abandoned came for employment, and those mired in the legal system came to see Vespertine Clement.
Catherine, and her witness Mrs. Schoop, came to have a status petition drafted. The two reeked of lye soap and physical labor.
"Mr. Daniel Jackson, of Albemarle County Virginia, emancipated you last March?" Vespertine asked.
Catherine opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. She was the same age as Vespertine, but years of sun and wind had creased her skin until she appeared decades older than her twenty-three years.
"Mr. Jackson freed you last March?" Vespertine tried again.
"Yes, Miss," Catherine answered. Mrs. Schoop patted Catherine's arm like a mother reassures a child.
The three women sat close around a salvaged table wedged into an alcove. Fruit crates, stacked three high and brimming with papers, filled the space behind Vespertine. Cards tacked to the ends cataloged the contents. A curtain blocked the view from the hallway and riffled each time one of her visitors brushed it with the back of her cap.
"Did he free others at the same time?"
Catherine nodded. "Mr. Johnson—"
"Jackson," Vespertine corrected.
Mrs. Schoop clutched her bag tight to her abdomen.

SVS Agent Round 2: LOVE INTERRUPTED, Adult Romance OwnVoices

Title: LOVE INTERRUPTED
Genre: Adult Romance #OwnVoices
Word Count: 75,000

Is Your Main Character hot or cold:

LOVE INTERRUPTED is a romance. There are two MCs.

Christine is hot. She's a woman working in a STEM field. She's had to fight to get where she is. She has no patience for stupidity or bullying.

Paul is cool under pressure. He needs steady nerves to take the kill shot when surrounded by smoke and gunfire. But, wow, he is also very HOT!
Query:

Dear Sun vs. Snow Agents,

Born with only three left fingers, Christine doubts any man will buy a diamond ring for her disfigured hand. She’s okay with that. She’s planning on finding a new job using her chemistry degree, buying a house, and adopting some kids. Then she meets Paul. Intelligent and gorgeous, he sees beyond her hand. She’s interested, but Paul comes across as a player, and she doesn't want to be just one of his many conquests.

Paul’s job in national security puts him in danger; he’s used to taking chances and succeeding when the odds are stacked against him. He’s intrigued when he meets Christine. She’s funny, smart, and has the most beautiful eyes. She’s also stubborn and self-protective. Paul puts his negotiation skills to work and persuades her to go out with him on five dates before she gives up on love. He’s psyched when she agrees.

As they take turns picking what they’ll do on their dates, they find themselves challenged to face their fears and learn to trust each other more with each encounter. When a beautiful woman attempts to seduce Paul, an incident Paul tries to hide from Christine. She walks out on him. She accepts a job out of state and renews her plans for buying a house and adopting children on her own. When Paul learns Christine’s new job fell through, he takes a chance and buys her a ring.

Paul seeks to regain Christine’s trust, but she refuses all his efforts until a drug cartel endangers Paul’s life. Christine realizes that without trust, she risks losing him forever.

Diversity is part of life and is part of this story. Christine is white; Paul is Blasian, black-Asian. Christine’s feelings about her disfigurement are based on my own experience with a disfiguring disease.

First 250:

The ambrosia of warming fragrances wafting from the Comfy Couch Coffee Shop and Bakery revitalized me. It had been another demoralizing night working at the lab. I needed chocolate and caffeine. Stat.

Looking up, I saw Captain America holding the door for me. My mood brightened at seeing his brilliant smile against his dark complexion. Scarlet, my best friend, and I gave all the regulars at the coffee shop nicknames. Captain America was so named because he always entered the coffee shop as if he considered everyone there under his protection. Scanning the room with what appeared to be practiced vigilance, his soulful eyes lingered on anyone who wasn't a regular.

He let me ahead of him in line to order my coffee. Crisply dressed, his tailored gray suit accentuated his lean athletic build. His self-assurance was daunting. Heat rose to my face as I mumbled my thanks. I sounded like I’d just come from the dentist with my lips and tongue numbed.

At the front of the line, not finding my credit card in its usual slot, heart-stopping panic gripped me. Then, I remembered dropping it in my car as I pulled away from the gas station. Rummaging through my purse, I hoped that under the receipt and gum wrapper debris, several dollars’ worth of change would appear. I shot an apologetic smile at the cashier and a "sorry" over my shoulder to the scowling eye-rollers behind me.

Cap handed his credit card to the cashier. “Here, put hers on this with mine.”

SVS Agent Round 3: TO LIVE, Adult Science Fiction

Title: TO LIVE
Genre: Adult science fictionWord Count: 71,000
Main Character Hot or Cold:
Well I’m dead, but don’t assume that makes me cold. If your virtual afterlife was glitching like mine is, if you found yourself entangled in a conspiracy with humanity’s very future in the balance, well then you just might be as hot as I am.  Query:
Abram Flynn is dead. But it gets worse: his virtual afterlife is glitching. 
In the near future, death is not the end. When people die, their minds will upload into The Fountain, a virtual afterlife for those who can afford it. It’s meant to be a seamless, life-like experience, but a glitch is causing rolling power blackouts, source code corruptions, and memory issues for residents.    
Community Administrator and advanced AI Evelyn Pope promises the residents that a fix is coming soon, but Abram suspects her of hiding the truth. The mechanism that allows him to sleep is broken, and in his nighttime wanderings he discovers that a group of hackers have infiltrated the system. They are led by the brilliant and beautiful Marie.
She reveals to him that a pandemic has wiped out human life on Earth, and that they, the hackers, are survivors of a dying world. Marie hopes to restart life from its digital grave using the genetic material stored on The Fountain mainframes, but Evelyn has other plans. Without humans inputting commands, she’s no longer interested in keeping order or running as a background program. She believes organic life is frail and weak and sees The Fountain as the beginning of virtual life with her as its creator.
Abram and Marie must wrest back control of the system before Evelyn escapes the network and spreads like a virus infecting the world’s technological infrastructure. If they fail, they’ll face deletion along with the rest of humanity. 
Complete at 71,000 words, TO LIVE is an adult science-fiction novel that explores the possibility of virtual life and how such technology would affect our concept of death, treating it as a new beginning. This take on the future of virtual existence will appeal to fans of ALTERED CARBON and READY PLAYER ONE.
First 250 Words:
Abram could feel the glitch in his mind, a throbbing sensation that made his thoughts fuzzy at the edges. It was in that edge that he first saw her. She started as a figment that became a shape that became a face. She became real. 
The Fountain’s tech support had given him their remedy for the glitch. He needed a reboot, but there was her to consider. He might lose her if he rebooted. She had come to him like an illicit download, and a reboot would wipe her clean.  
A shudder of anxious energy slithered up his spine as he climbed out of bed. Like a board being wiped clean, he forgot just then his reason for standing. He looked back to the bed and Marcelia who slept ensconced in her pre-programmed sleep mode. It was a mode his glitching OS hadn’t accessed for days.  
His mind shook with little tremors until remembering again. The bouts of forgetfulness came more and more frequently, but only at night. By day he could fake it better. Marcelia didn’t even seem to notice. 
His heart raced, and a primal heat coursed through his body until he reached the front door. When he pushed it open his next breath felt lighter, as though a weight had been lifted from his chest. Flood lights illuminated his way, and his shadow grew longer with each step away from the house, as though it wanted to find her even more than he did.

SVS Agent Round 4: DOG'S BREAKFAST, Adult Upmarket

Title: DOG’S BREAKFASTGenre: Adult UpmarketWord Count: 79,000

Is Your Main Character hot or cold: Veteran diplomat Andy Pulano has achieved a level of success but aches to rise to the top. He is cold to the bone and chillingly effective.
Hot on the inside, cool on the outside, Tara Zadani is a first-generation American, the daughter of Indian immigrants. She is a young woman, new to the world of diplomacy, with strong feelings about justice. Her ideals and love of life burn within her heart. But to succeed in her environment, she must be cool and calculating.Query:
Dear Agent:
Soon after junior officer Tara Zadani arrives for her new assignment at the U.S. embassy in a remote crevice of the Balkans, deputy chief Andy Pulano imposes an odd extra task. On top of overseeing the motor pool and maintenance crews, she now has to figure out who tried to poison the ambassador's Labrador.
Years of climbing the State Department ladder have brought Andy Pulano within one promotion of his ultimate goal in life: to become an ambassador. When the actual ambassador overreacts to his pet getting sick one morning, Pulano seizes the opportunity to advance himself by undermining his boss. Through stealth and subterfuge, he creates diplomatic chaos so he can claim credit for the cleanup.
In her off-hours, Tara discreetly investigates the dog incident, volunteers at a Roma school, and starts a romance with an intriguing traveler from Denmark. With a few zigs and zags, Pulano makes great progress in destroying the ambassador’s standing with the host country’s president. As Pulano’s scheme reaches the brink of fruition, Tara shocks him by solving the mystery of the attempted poisoning and by informing the ambassador, in defiance of Pulano’s orders.
The ambassador, about to fire Pulano, persists in blaming local authorities for what happened to his dog, resulting in Pulano being left in charge of the embassy. And in Tara being left to his mercy. To safeguard her fledgling career and pursue her romance with the adventurous Dane, she must match wits with the wily veteran.
DOG’S BREAKFAST will appeal to fans of Alexander McCall Smith and Carl Hiaasen.
First 250 words:
Second fiddle. Fourth fiddle would perhaps be more precise, insofar as the ambassador’s wife and dog also appeared to outrank him. Andy Pulano, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Vodaynia, felt something unusual at the outset of yet another diplomatic reception: he needed to summon an effort to project the hearty good cheer he considered a hallmark of professionalism.
Pulano’s eyebrows sagged at this realization. In public, especially at large social gatherings, his eyebrows were accustomed to romping freely across the expanse of his forehead, like a pair of frisky weasels. Not now. Why, all of a sudden, did he have to exert himself to project congeniality? Granted, his current assignment held out scant prospects for distinguishing himself. A splinter of a fragment of a nation so remote and inconsequential many people in neighboring countries had never heard of the place, Vodaynia was no one’s idea of a stepping stone for advancement up the State Department ranks.
But deep in his bones, something else gnawed. The dog.
Pulano’s freshly-shaved head glistened, and he clenched his smile in place as Davos skittered across the foyer, tail whipping and paws clicking on the marble, and careened into the guest book stand. In a matter of moments, a fair sampling of Vodaynia’s luminaries, such as they were, would swarm the ambassador’s residence for the entertainment of a visiting senator from Nebraska. The prominent participation of the rambunctious chocolate Lab heightened Pulano’s awareness that his own precious career had somehow slid onto a trajectory to nowhere.

SVS Agent Round 5: CORPORATE GUNSLINGER, Adult Science Fiction

Title: CORPORATE GUNSLINGER
Genre: Adult Science Fiction
Word Count: 89,000

Is Your Main Character hot or cold: 

Kira presents cold, but inside she's a hot mess most of the time. As a professional gunfighter, she has to stay calm under pressure. When the pressure comes off, though, things can get weird. So, put her down as cold, but be ready for a sudden thaw. Query:
Dear Agent:
Kira White has three choices – kill, die, or spend a lifetime in servitude. For a corporate gunfighter, that’s just another Tuesday.
Like millions of others in near-future America, Kira owes big. She borrowed against a “lifetime services contract” for her education, and if she defaults, her creditors will control every bit of her personal and professional life. When her acting income doesn’t cover her payments, she takes up the well-paid position of professional gunfighter. On the corporate dueling fields, where legal questions are settled with deadly finality, she becomes the most feared representative of TKC Insurance. 
When she defeats a naive young woman desperate to enforce her family’s claim on their mother’s life insurance policy, Kira’s ability to rationalize dies along with her opponent. She’s a killer of innocents, and she knows it. TKC offers the opportunity to fight another professional for a huge purse, and Kira sees it as a chance to buy a new life or die trying. Instead, the match leaves her wounded, jobless, and facing enslavement. 
With the foreclosure clock ticking and her guilt metastasizing into suicidal self-loathing, Kira becomes lead plaintiff in a group lawsuit against the bank holding her contract. She could accept a modest settlement that would cancel her debt, but if she demands a duel she could free thousands of people, render the bank insolvent, and unravel the financial underpinnings of debt slavery. Shattering the institution might relieve Kira's guilt, but evil institutions don’t go down easily. With the courage of sheer desperation, Kira overcomes abduction by old enemies and betrayal by allies.  To win, however, she must prevail against an opponent backed by enough money to corrupt anything — even the dueling fields where she once reigned supreme.
First 250 Words:
Kira White stood alone in the midst of the neutral carpet, beige walls, and bought-by-the pound corporate artwork, preparing for a transaction that would probably end in death—either hers or, more likely, that of her opponent. 
She was less than an arm’s length from the double doors of the Central Iowa Dueling Arena’s Waiting Room Three, but she made no move to open them. The bright blue numbers on the digital clock above the entrance gave her ten minutes before she faced default for failure to appear.
She timed her breath by count, using twice as many seconds to release a lungful of air as she had used to take it in. As her first acting instructor had promised, her heart slowed, her muscles relaxed, and her mind cleared.
Her mental preparation complete, she checked the sleek, black rectangle of the handset on her belt, pushed her short-cropped blonde hair into place, adjusted her cloak, and changed the angle of her hat. She considered removing her gloves but decided that was better done inside,  where the task could demonstrate her speed and dexterity for the man who had to outdraw her if he wanted to leave the field alive. It would give him another reason to quit before the match started.
She focused on her role, visualizing the way she wanted her opponent to see her. She spoke softly but intently, words audible only to herself: “I am death. I am terror. I am blood.”

SVS Agent Round 6: SEEING MY SISTER, MG Contemporary

Title: SEEING MY SISTERGenre: MG ContemporaryWord Count: 39,000

Is Your Main Character hot or cold: 
Renee is a hot character. She approaches life with fierce determination and enthusiasm, especially when it comes to figure skating. At home, Renee’s grit gets her in trouble more than it helps her. Though Renee loves her little sister, Justine, it’s hard for her when her parents spend every waking second obsessing over Justine’s disability. When Renee’s skating coach gets diagnosed with cancer, it makes Renee’s fragile world even more shakable. As Renee faces difficult challenges, she struggles to understand why so many bad things are happening.  
Query:
Dear Michelle Hauck and Amy Trueblood,
Twelve-year-old Renee Gilbert knows that if she works hard on the ice and takes her practices seriously, she might have a chance at an actual gold medal in her upcoming skating competition. But back at home, things aren’t so simple.
No matter how hard Renee’s sister, Justine, works, she will never ever be able to do the kinds of things that Renee can do—like walk or ride a bike. It just doesn’t seem fair that Justine has Spina Bifida, or that Mom and Dad never have time to watch Renee skate.
When Renee’s coach gets diagnosed with cancer, it flips Renee’s world upside down. How is she ever going to be ready to compete when her favorite coach is fighting for her life? On top of that, Justine’s new therapist is driving Renee mad and Samantha, her locker mate at school, greets her everyday with a nasty smirk that makes her feel two feet tall. Somehow, through all of this, Renee must find a way to land her axels consistently, or else she’ll never have a chance at winning the gold medal.
Fans of Michele Weber Hurwitz’s Calli Be Gold, Cynthia Lord’s Rules, and R.J. Palacio’s Wonder will enjoy SEEING MY SISTER.    First 250 words:
Renee reached over to the steering wheel and honked the horn for the third time. Pleeeeasseee, Dad. Hurry! Renee had to be on the ice at 6:00 AM for her skating practice before school. It was 5:35, and the skating rink was fifteen minutes from her house. If she and Dad left this second, that would leave just enough time for her to jump out of the car, race into the rink, and lace up her skates before stepping onto the ice. But it wouldn’t leave time for their Friday morning tradition when Dad took her to the doughnut shop on the way to the rink. For just a few minutes, they would sit and eat their doughnuts together. It was something that belonged to just the two of them, and more importantly, didn’t involve Renee’s little sister, Justine.
“Sorry, honey,” Dad said. He plopped into the driver’s seat. His dark, curly hair looked like it hadn’t seen a comb in a century. “Justine has a doctor’s appointment this morning, and your mom needed my help, and…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Renee sighed. “I understand.” Typical.
“I hate it when this happens, sweetheart.”
“I know.” Renee brushed one of her auburn curls out of her face and turned away from Dad. Can’t we just be a normal family-- for even just one day? It’s so not fair. She peered into the windows of the houses they drove past and wondered if things were fair in those families’ lives.

SVS Agent Round 7: I AM BECOME ANNABELLE, MG Fantasy

Title: I AM BECOME ANNABELLE
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Word Count: 34,000

Is Your Main Character hot or cold?

Annabelle is cold. Given all she’s been through at such a young age, and the secrets she now keeps, she handles things coolly and calmly.

Query:
Annabelle Parker’s parents are not dead. Everyone thinks they are, that she’s in the club with Harry Potter and Batman, but they needn’t purchase her jacket just yet. Her parents are stuck in a painting, and she’s determined to find the right one and let them out.

Annabelle is pretty sure she has the situation under control. She’s twelve now, and she’s conquered the Portland MAX train and put up with her hippie grandpa, so she can do anything. In the two years since Annabelle’s parents disappeared, she’s released the inhabitants of sixty-three paintings. Her sixty-fourth happens to be Devi Ghosh, a thirteen-year-old girl from Mumbai who wants nothing more than to get back in the painting Annabelle has taken her out of.

The girls must work together, though all they have to go on is Annabelle’s fractured memory of the night her parents disappeared. There is a connection between their families and the Portland Art Museum; Annabelle has to find it, or she won’t ever see her parents again.

I AM BECOME ANNABELLE, complete at 34,000 words, is a MG fantasy novel about accidental and reluctant sisterhood, the Saturday flea market, and Hindu mythology. It is the first in a planned series.

First 250 words:

My name is Annabelle Parker, and I have let a lot of things into this world that don’t belong here.

I always hoped for the best, of course, but I had no way of knowing what would come from any given painting. I’ve released pirates and pandas, Venus Fly-Traps and a velociraptor. Yeah, once, a velociraptor. It went on a rampage and ate four chickens before being impaled.

Even the dinosaur was better than a lot of things. I once let out a dragon. It was the size of a housecat and had a cold. I haven’t seen it since, but I figure it can’t be terrorizing the world too much or I’d have heard about it by now.

In two years, I’d found sixty-three paintings. I’d released people, animals, and things I called “other”. Like this one thing made of light that burned me when I touched it. I was glad to see it go, honestly.

Now I walked along the Willamette river, looking for the best spot. The spot where I was least likely to be spotted. I’d taken the MAX train as far as I could, to the Old Town Chinatown stop. The painting of a boat had taken up an entire seat next to me, but at right before five in the morning, no one cared. I only saw one other person on the train, and it’s an unspoken Portland rule that you leave people on the MAX alone if it’s before six in the morning.

SVS Agent Round 8: THE BAKER BEACH DETECTIVE, MG Mystery

Title: THE BAKER BEACH DETECTIVEGenre: Middle Grade MysteryWord Count:  52,000
My main character is hot, pretending to be cold.
I'm thirteen and a master at reinventing myself.  I've bounced around a lot of foster families and this one is my last shot.  I'll be whatever kid they want in order to stay.  But my new sister, Soledad, thought I was like her when she picked me from the database: a cold, analytical genius. She wants an assistant just like her to help track down her parents' killer.  But the deeper we dig into the case, the more I rely on my old instincts because the evidence feels all wrong.  Unfortunately, feelings are something Soledad won't accept, even when solving the case depends on it.
QUERY
Thirteen-year-old Jane Watson has a popstar’s ability to reinvent herself into whatever sort of kid a foster family wants: hick, athlete, drama star.  Just name it and Jane will transform into the perfect child.  Or so she thinks.
When Jane moves in with Mr. Hudson and his granddaughter, Soledad Homez, she’s lived with nine different families in four years and it’s her last shot at finding a permanent home.  Jane loves the house high on the cliffs above Baker Beach, but unfortunately Soledad picked Jane because she mistook her for a genius.  Soledad needs a brilliant assistant to help prove that it was no accident when her parents were killed by sharks. 
Jane tries to fool Soledad into thinking she’s the Einstein for the job, but Soledad sees through her act and plans to expose her as a fraud.  Afraid of losing favor with Mr. Hudson, Jane sets out to become a real detective and proves a talent for turning up fresh clues.  Soon she and Soledad are on the path of a killer who is using sharks to attack a champion surfer, and Soledad feels certain that they’ve found a solid connection to her parents’ murderer.
But as they close in on the mystery, the killer sends pictures of Jane running around San Francisco after dark to Mr. Hudson and he decides Jane is a bad influence and plans to send her back to the foster center.  With only one night to solve the case, Jane drops the detective act and turns to her instincts as a con artist because all the evidence feels false.  Someone has purposely led them down the wrong path and it’s up to Jane to expose their enemy and find the truth, even if it means losing Soledad’s hard-earned respect and maybe even her life.
FIRST 250
Water splashes up my legs and soaks the bottom of my dress.  I stop and listen, my ears pricked up like a terrier’s since I can’t see a thing.  There's a churning far down the tunnel, like the entire ocean is streaming toward me.  Soledad mentioned something about an ancient Gold Rush tube connected to Mountain Lake that floods once a year.  Could I really be that unlucky?
I turn and run blindly in the other direction, tripping over something hard and falling on my face in the mud.  But it’s not just water and dirt.  I taste other stuff that I haven’t experienced since cleaning the hamster cage in the second grade. I can’t even think about it and why should I?  Here I am about to die and I’m freaking out about how there’s probably—no—there’s totally rat poop in the mud.
I push up onto my hands and knees, my slimy hair clinging to my cheeks like seaweed. As I crawl over the tunnel floor, my skirt scrapes up a mound of sludge that smells like rotten eggs and manure.  It gets so thick, I have to dig it out with my manicured nails before I try to stand back up or I'll topple over again.  After several tries, I manage to scrabble onto my feet, one hand pressed against the tunnel wall for balance as I stagger into blackness, the roar of the water now deafening behind me.