Trick or Treat #D10 – Eisley

Title: Eisley
Category: YA
Genre: Sci-Fi
Word Count: 80,​000

Pitch: Seventeen-year-old Juliet Eisley is a genetically engineered loner without much hope of a future – until she teams up with misanthropic medical genius Quinn Aldrick. Convinced Aldrick’s work will save thousands, Juliet finally finds a purpose, and Aldrick’s dark world starts to feel like home. But could she be the unwilling subject of her new mentor’s ultimate experiment?

Question 1: In your MC's voice, what costume character do you relate most to and why?

Easy - Dr. John Watson, because somehow I ended up as sidekick to a totally damaged genius who needs me more than he knows. Frickin' A - I took a bullet for Aldrick, just like Watson did for Holmes – though I doubt Watson had to give Holmes advice about women after.

Question 2: As an author, what makes your manuscript a tasty treat (aka marketable/unique)?

My manuscript is a Mary E. Pearson's THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX meets Rick Yancey’s THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST, set in the Georgia swamplands of a not-so-distant future. A standalone work with series potential, EISLEY is light sci-fi with crossover appeal.

First 200 Words:

On the day Aldrick got me, I’d painted my fingernails blue.

Not a nice sky blue or a deep cerulean, but a completely aggressive navy. It matched the circles under my eyes, which matched my mood. The sleep deprivation was compliments of Kenny, my roommate at the Institution, who’d moaned his way through a particularly rough night. Bloody sheets and pus-clotted Kleenexes spilled from his bed all over the floor. This was not fragrance-of-roses material (That’s something my dad used to say).

Usually when Kenny had a bad night, I worked extra hard to put on a good face for him. But today was July 5th. And July 5th was never a normal day for me, not since getting packed away in this sideshow of a boarding school.

I shimmied off the top bunk and tried to ignore the big obnoxious 5 winking at me from the wall calendar. With rumors swirling around that some mysterious benefactor was inquiring about the (unheard-of, mythical, nonexistent) possibility of adolescent adoption, my classmates had been going ape-nuts since Monday, and it was exhausting. Right now they were probably putting on their cleanest uniforms and giving each other makeovers and trying to cover all their weird genetic mishaps with leg braces or sweaters or liters of foundation.