Mentor Name: Kristen Strassel
Mentee Name: Rosemary McElhannon
Title: LOVE, CARLY
Category: New Adult
Genre: Romance with erotic elements
Word Count: 105,000
Pitch:
From rehab to the role of a lifetime! #COMEBACK
Sleeping with your costar… #BADIDEA
Like I can resist #THESEXIESTMANALIVE
Keeping our secret at ALL costs #HOLLYWOODSCANDAL
Excerpt:
DENIED.
Inky red letters charge across the top of my request form. I take a deep breath, gritting my teeth, unable to believe my eyes. Dread seeps in. This is everything and he knows it. How could he?
Faint voices drift under the crack below his door. I know I shouldn’t do it, but truth be told, I simply don’t care anymore.
“Everything okay, Miss Klein?” A receptionist watches me with a wary smile.
“I need to talk to Doc,” I answer, bursting toward his door.
“Miss Klein, you can’t go in there!” The receptionist leaps from her chair. But I’m too quick, slipping through the door and locking it before she gets around her desk.
His office reeks of textbooks and medical supplies, an overly educated scent that has punctuated my afternoon sessions for months. Doc wears his normal khakis and white lab coat behind an enormous mahogany desk. The voices, I learn, are coming from his speakerphone.
He pushes a button and the phone goes silent. “Carly? Can I help you?” He’s shocked, but not really. People around here have come to expect my outbursts.
“What the hell is this?” I wave the paper in the air and toss it on his desk.
“Ah,” he pretends to read the form as if he wasn’t the one who put those damned letters there. “I thought you were serious about your recovery this time?” He leans back in his plush leather chair, a totally parental scowl on his face.
“I’ve been sober nine months. I’m pretty sure that’s recovered.” I cross my arms and tap my foot, trying to keep it together.
“From the drugs, yes. But we’ve only reached the tip of the iceberg when it comes to your deeper psychological issues. Last week you were eager to continue your treatment plan.” He tosses the form dismissively across his desk. Psychological issues? I squeeze my chest so tightly my tits are about to bust. Doesn’t he know how important this is to me? How over my life will be if I don’t go? Why is he being so unreasonable?
“Fuck the Freud shit, Doc. You can’t keep me here. Don’t you see what an opportunity I have?”