PW #101: Adult Thriller with supernatural elements: THE BUTTERFLY TATTOO

Manuscript Status: Finished

Mentor Name: Clarissa Goenawan

Mentee Name: Matt Thomas

Title: THE BUTTERFLY TATTOO

Category: Adult

Genre: Thriller with supernatural elements

Word Count: 78,000 words

Pitch:

After a hit-and-run, eleven-year-old Lee is in a coma. His parents’ once-happy marriage is collapsing, while Harvey and Elle—the officer and bartender who caused the accident—struggle with guilt. Soon, Lee’s spirit appears to each of the four, driving them together in a quest of revenge and redemption. All five lives will intersect again, and not everyone will survive.

Excerpt:

Moments before the car accident that would leave his son in a coma, Jon Young had a conversation about baseball. Baseball—or, to be precise, the standing of the Washington Nationals in the East Division of the National League—was the topic the Young family had been held hostage by during the holy months of April through October for the past six years, ever since Lee turned five.

“Do you think they can win the pennant this season, dad?” Lee asked from the backseat of Jon’s beloved ninety-two Toyota Cressida.

Jon glanced in the rearview mirror. There wasn’t much to see in the darkness, but he could just detect the ghost-white rise and fall of the baseball that always danced in his son’s hands. “Who do what?”

“The Nats, dad,” Lee said, oblivious to his pretended ignorance. “What about the World Series?”

“It’s only mid-April,” Jon said as he turned onto the Accotink Parkway, mystified as usual that he and Sarah had produced such a fanatical child.

“Not this way,” Sarah said from the passenger seat. “It’s slower.”

“Shorter though.” But the truth was that after an evening of watching Lee shine on the ball field he just felt good, and the parkway—wooded, winding, and yes, slow—reinforced that feeling. Sarah always wanted to get where she was going as soon as possible, never understood his perpetual desire to take the scenic route.