This year, I received one of the best Christmas and early birthday gifts ever––an offer of agent representation from literary agent Natascha Morris with Bookends Literary. Signing with an agent is a monumental step forward toward my dream of publishing my young adult novels.
Already, I have felt so welcomed by the rest of Natascha’s team and am gearing up for a strong bout of hard work to get my young adult novel, Paperback Midnight, ready for editor submission.
What’s Paperback Midnight about?
Teaser:
Seventeen-year-old literary genius, Darcy Wells, has all the book boyfriends she needs, but when it comes to real life, she’d settle for a first kiss.
While she dreams of a happy ending plucked from one of the countless stories she’s memorized, Darcy is trapped behind book pages, hiding herself and the rest of the world from her mother’s hoarding. That is until a new apartment manager becomes more active in the upkeep of their building. Now Darcy must confront the hoard to save her home without driving her mother deeper under an avalanche of things.
As Darcy seeks the truth behind her mother’s compulsive shopping, she meets Asher Fleet, a teen pilot with a shattered future following a car accident. The two grow closer, and for the first time in her life Darcy can’t find the right words. Fairy tales are one thing, but real love makes her want to hide inside her carefully constructed ink and paper bomb shelter. Soon it becomes clear: unlocking her mother’s illness and finally securing her own love story requires Darcy to stop hiding and start living her own truth. Even if it’s messy.
Have you ever used books to escape? I know I have. When life has been sad or stressful I’ve often tucked myself inside my favorite novels. My seventeen-year-old protagonist, Darcy Jane Wells (ten points to the the house who guesses who her mother named her after…) is a book escaper. The only problem, Darcy has hidden herself so deeply in literature, in other girls’ lives and happy endings, she’s neglected her own. She’s taken her late-night flashlight and gone so far into books, she feels invisible to everyone. Especially boys.
“Darcy with a heart-shaped face. And a book-shaped heart.”
Paperback Midnight
Darcy realizes, in order to save her mother and her home, in order to have any chance at love, she has to step out from behind her plot and paper walls. She must acknowledge her truth and live authentically. Darcy has to finally live her own story––even if it’s messy.
Paperback Midnight is the story of one girl’s journey from fairy tale into real life. And maybe into love.
Readers, thank you for going on this journey with me!
Laura
Love the story plot. Very anxious to read it! Not a young adult, but very much an avid reader. Good luck, Laura.
Ha – thank you so much! I’m not a young adult either. Maybe in my dreams?! Thank you for stopping by!