Super Intern Contest – ONLY ONE TIME

Genre:  YA Paranormal Suspense
Word count: 55,000

Query:

River Morgan’s petite, pink-haired and not quite twenty, but she has already mastered the art of how to erase a memory from those who are haunted by their past.  River must write the memories in her Memory Book or else they become her own. So when the book is stolen, River’s no longer able to tell the difference between her memories and the memories she’s wiped away. Unless she finds the book, her identity will be lost forever.

What Shae Conniers thought was a cool looking journal ends up being a pulsing and often-glowing book full of trouble. Her fairy-tale, pink-dress-wearing days are over. The Memory Book becomes a memory-stealing book when placed in the wrong hands. New powers sound intriguing to Shae, but the weird memories dancing around her head soon turn scary. It’s the memories that bring River and Shae together despite River’s spunky, funky personality clashing with Shae’s princess-got-to-be attitude.

Every Taker in the town of Ravyn craves this unexplored power, but River is dead set on protecting it. When River suddenly begins to loose her identity and both girls fall in love with a Taker, she must risk her life by connecting with the underground, playing fire with an ancient relic using her against her will and a lover who thinks she might be better off dead.

River must choose between doing what is right or doing what her heart wants. Because some memories you want to live over and over again — and some memories are best forgotten.

250-word excerpt:

A man’s hand reached out from the smoky plated mirror and caressed River on the cheek. The dark pink nails glowed against her pale skin. A manacle chain dangled from his wrist, clinking as the open cuff wrapped around her arm. River wanted to burst into tears but refused to show any sign of weakness. She would make him suffer. But how? A strange thought entered her mind and with a sudden impulse, she slapped the open cuff onto his wrist, clicking it shut. She heard a startled gasp escape from his mouth and felt the jerk on her hand as he drew his arm away.

“You—”he exclaimed. The tone of his voice teetered somewhere between surprise and outrage. Again, he pulled his arm back, jerking against the chain,and River’s hand went with him back through the mirror. “What have you done? Do you think I do not have a key for these chains?

She fluttered her eyes, unprepared for his response. The wheels in her mind turned like a coo-coo clock gone wild. Her mind sped faster with each short breath escaping from her lips. Cocking her head upwards, she spied the key dangling from the same hook where the chains once hung. Not wasting one second, she grabbed the key and slipped it down the bodice of her dress. Immediately she realized how foolish she had acted and the color drained from her face.

“You are mad!” the man said, his voice strange and frightening.