PW #112: Adult Gaslamp Fantasy: THE RESURRECTIONIST OF CALIGO

Manuscript Status: Finished

Mentor: Michelle Hauck
Mentees: Wendy Roberts and Alicia Zaloga
Title: THE RESURRECTIONIST OF CALIGO
Category/Genre: Adult Gaslamp Fantasy (dual POV)
Word Count: 112,000

Pitch:

Roger Weathersby, Man of Science, is reduced to body-snatching after a prison stint rewards his love affair with Sibylla, a princess exiled for refusing to marry her cousin. When Roger unearths a strangled woman and is framed for her murder, Sibylla must pardon him from the scaffold with her “faerie-magic”—thus cursing him with an unquenchable addiction—as the murder count rises in a dangerous game of magic vs. science.

Excerpt:

Gas lamps bobbed like faerie lights in the foul wind sweeping down from Greyanchor Necropolis. Roger Weathersby adjusted his topcoat to conceal the rope and rolled-up sheet slung over his shoulder. Thrusting his moth-eaten gloves in his pockets, he inventoried his supplies with his fingertips: candles, tinderbox, lockpicks, folding candle hood, and a reassuring—if useless—garlic bulb for protection.

“Yer lookin’ a mite wet, Roger love,” crooned a painted doxy from a tawdry lodging house doorway. Her skirt clung to her thighs like rotten leaves. “Still no coin? Discount fer that handsome face.”

Roger cast her a regretful look and tucked his chin behind his collar. “Try me again tomorrow. You’ll hear my pockets janglin’ all the way in Mouthstreet.”

Veering off Goatmonger Street, he headed toward a looming hill, swollen with centuries of bones. He lost his hat in a mad shimmy over the necropolis wall but didn’t waste time searching. Enveloped by fog, Roger relied on water-filled wheel ruts left by a hearse to find his way through the forty-acre necropolis. On the previous day, he had trailed a funeral through the gate and noticed the simplicity of the affair: a single gentleman mourner and an anonymous mute clad in the traditional crape and mourning mask. Such closefisted families never bothered to hire a night watchman. This corpse would be ripe for the plucking.