It Always Pours

Well, it's true in the world of publishing, I think: you can go months with very little to do, besides your own writing and marketing, and then all of a sudden you have all these deadlines at one time. That's how it seems to be for me, anyway. I just finished the cover art form for One Night in Napa -- am still working on the print galleys for One Night in Memphis -- and just received my blurb form for One Night in Napa, with a promise from my editor that my first round of edits are close behind. Yikes.

So the blurb...

I don't really like writing them. Sometimes the words come easily, but usually they don't. In 1000 words or less, I'm supposed to write something so exciting, and so revealing about my book and the style in which it's written, that readers will run to buy it.

While I was chewing over how to start this one, I pulled out my original query letter (well, one of them, anyway) for some help. And I realized that most of my regular blog readers don't have much idea what this story is about. So until the official blurb is written and posted, I thought I'd share part of the query today...

ONE NIGHT IN NAPA

Grant Walker wants nothing more than to get out from under his domineering father’s thumb. But as the editor in chief for the most successful San Francisco newspaper, dad pretty much calls the shots, since he pays Grant’s salary. A series of interviews with the reclusive fading film star Francesca Morelli might be Grant’s ticket out, though, if he proves himself worthy. When Francesca’s adopted son ends up kidnapped by terrorists, Grant is there to get the first interview with a grieving mother. Just when he thinks his situation can’t get any better, Francesca’s illegitimate granddaughter arrives on the scene – and she hasn’t been heard from in seven long years. It’s the story of a lifetime, and all Grant has to do is deliver.

Kira March, a.k.a. Isabella Morelli, left her childhood home seven years earlier, vowing never to return after she discovered a terrible secret about her own birth. But when her father vanishes and her adoptive grandmother cracks under media pressure, it’s up to Kira to find and destroy all evidence of that secret. The only problem? A reporter has weaseled his way into the Morelli mansion looking for answers – and he isn’t leaving until he gets them.

With both hero and heroine fighting time, their attraction to one another, and their own inner paternal struggles, this novel invokes the classic tale of Oedipus Rex and forces us to examine the ways in which fathers can both shape and destroy us – and the lengths we’ll go to protect the family name...