Manuscript Status: Finished
Mentor: S.P. McConnell
Mentee: Leigh Stanfield
Title: THE BLUFF
Category: Adult
Genre: M/M Romance/Thriller
Word Count: 100,000
Pitch:
Digital activist Evan Kearney makes a living exposing injustice. To solve a violent hate crime in sleepy Alderville, SC, he confronts a duplicitous reverend determined to maintain the town’s tranquil facade. As clues begin to surface, Evan realizes more people are at risk. Can he reveal the truth while protecting Milo, the handsome local who won his heart? Or will his efforts place Milo in even greater danger?
Excerpt:
Evan Kearney loomed over the small, plastic frog with a lethal expression. Nothing inside but stale rainwater and dead bugs; the house key was nowhere to be found.
Swearing, he kicked it, sending the empty vessel skittering across the porch and into the bushes with an unsatisfying thump. His scowl deepened. “I’ll leave the spare key in the frog for you, he said. It’ll be no trouble, he said.” Clearly, the owner of the bungalow had a very different understanding of no trouble. Thanks to him, Evan had a frog in the bush and no key in hand.
And…sod it all.
He couldn’t be too angry. His employers had gone through the trouble of setting everything up, getting the rental for him and paying through two months. He’d just needed to show up and let himself in.
Easier said than done.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, as if to echo Evan’s mood. There had been a storm rolling in since he’d gotten off the plane in Charleston, and the dark clouds had followed him all the way out to Nowhere, South Carolina.
The town of Alderville wasn’t even a pixel on the map. Home to just over four-thousand residents year-round, it was the kind of place where everybody knew everybody, and the most frequented building was an even split between the church on the hill and the tavern on the waterfront.
