NEW RULES!
You get… ONE VOTE.
And, it can’t be for your lines 😉
LAST ROUNDS COMMENTS WINNER: JEMIMAH
Jemimah, email me at briaquinlan AT aol.com and let me know if you want Finding Your Writer’s Voice, one of my YA or Rom Com ebooks, or a $5 GC for Amazon.
Here we go!
CHIME, YA Sci Fi
I opened the pantry to get a box of cereal, and my brother’s AK-47 fell over with a clang at my feet. I jerked out the magazine, pulled the bolt to check the chamber and popped out the round.
“Mom, Nicholas left his AK loaded again,” I said and set the weapon on the stainless steel counter.
Nicholas skidded into the kitchen, sliding on his socked feet. “Why’d you have to tell, Chime? You leave your throwing stars in that drawer.”
HELL’S PARADISE, Romance, Other
Ghost had grown accustomed to the shadows.
Living in darkness had become a haven and a prison sentence.
His job was to stop bad things before they happened to good people. He protected the innocent, even if it meant sacrificing himself, even if that made him a not so nice person, even if it was the reason he was away from her. He’d saved her or she’d saved him – how didn’t matter because there was truth in both their versions. She’d made him feel and it became her biggest weapon against him and made her his greatest weakness.
AT FIRST BLUSH, Contemp Romance
The door to the Happy Clam Family Restaurant blew open, bringing in a gust of cold air and the haunting ghost from Hope Windward’s past. Confusion and suspicion swirled in her belly, working its way up her esophagus, nearly choking her with fright. No, not him. Hope flicked the beer tap back, her hand trembling as she slid the Sam Adam’s down the bar to her customer.
The afternoon sun reflected off the ocean, nearly blinding her, but not so much that she couldn’t make out his face. He had the same dark eyes, only aged, and harder around the edges.
HIS DARK TEMPTATION, Paranormal Romance
Dorran took a step into the hotel room situated above one of the taverns in the Temple Bar District and cursed every undying god he knew of.
He had been searching for his female, his mate, for almost a thousand years and she had been in this very room within the last twenty-four hours.
And he had missed her.
Roaring so that the generic decorations and frames on the walls rattled, he placed his palms flat against the door frame and hung his head, taking in deep breaths of the scent that electrified each and every hair on his body, that set fire to the blood rushing through his veins.
She smelled like sea spray and a sky full of heavy rain clouds and her absence opened up a yawning ache where his heart should be.
Eyes slanting open with an eerie glow he caught in the small mirror above the dresser, he took in another strong breath and didn’t conceal the satisfaction of knowing his female’s pleasure-drenched scent.
CASANOVA EXPOSED, Contemp Romance
Goodbye dignity.
Hovering over a toilet in a stall with her borrowed cocktail dress squeezed between her knees to keep it from falling in had to be the final nail in Kate Vernon’s dignity. Normally she didn’t eavesdrop, but when juicy gossip paid the bills…
“I don’t know why you’re bothering with Mark Stanton,” the woman by the mirror said in a bored and jaded tone.
“I’m going to have him again,” the other woman said, her voice smug as if she knew a secret the rest of womankind didn’t.
Mark Stanton was one of the reasons Kate had infiltrated the closed party at Madness, the hot nightclub of the moment.
UNCONTROLLED HOPE, Paranormal Romance
Beneath the inky black of a moonless night, Nyah Kendrick hiked through the dense Maine forest, her heart racing with anticipation of the hunt. The artic wind rattling the branches above her carried the clean scent of fresh snow mixed with the stench of the humans waiting to die.
Some of her clan, including a few she hunted with tonight, felt sympathy for these weak creatures—not Nyah. Humans had ripped apart the very fabric of her existence when they slaughtered everyone she loved and left her for dead. Hatred rose up, consuming her in its darkness, until there was no other emotion save for her razor-sharp need for revenge.
Nyah broke through the thick underbrush on the edge of the frozen lake, stunned to find a male vampire surveying the shanty village of fishing shacks.
MIDNIGHT’S BALANCE, Paranormal Romance
“If you take another Instagram snap, I’m going to feed you to the alligator.”
She didn’t acknowledge the threat, but waved glitter tipped fingers in my direction, and continued tapping her phone in a blaze of glory.
For the first time in 300 years, I was struck speechless by a familiar…on her first day no less.
I snatched the slim rose gold device from her palms, and a full two seconds passed before its absence registered.
Kids these days owned multiple electronics branded with the same tiny apples, which made me wonder if Hades himself might discover the logo stamped on their souls when they selfied their way to the Underworld.
When Marina reached out to snatch the phone from my hands, I stepped backward and smirked as she smacked face first into the wards guarding my threshold.
This was supremely difficult to vote for just one (and not my own!)! I read them with fresh eyes. There are several that I want to buy when they get published.
Well, my favorite didn’t make it to this round. Oh well there were plenty of other great beginnings to choose from. 🙂 By the way, not liking the “only vote” rule now. 😉
It’s coming down to writing style for me. Which entry has the cadence and tempo that suck me in. Of course that only whittled the field down to half the entries … not much help. My final decision was based on which line made me wonder what happens next. But like Renay, I’m not liking this one vote thing. It makes me very sad.
Also I think I accidentally voted for 2. Darn it! I tried to stop the page from loading, but it went through.
Congrats to those who make it through this round. I’m looking forward to finding out what books/authors the others belong to so I can check them out!
One of my favorites. I was disappointed not to see the entry in this round. I was really wondering what was going to happen next. Best of luck finishing the book!
JUST A REMINDER TO ALL PARTICIPANTS: PLEASE DO NOT OUT YOUR ENTRY EVEN AFTER YOU’VE DROPPED OUT BECAUSE THAT NARROWS DOWN TO WHO IS IN.
We’ll have a thread AFTER for a big reveal for anyone who wants to be involved.
WOW! That was hard! I think all 5 authors who made it to this round are winners!
Tough decision, but it all came down to style and which one suited me best as a reader. Good luck to all the entrants.
Woops sorry Bria, another mistake on my part. Feel free to delete my previous comment.
I think I’m set in my choice by this point, but who knows… Maybe someone has a killer line just around the corner. 😉
Wow. Its getting difficult to choose! Good luck to the final few!
I’m not liking this vote for only one rule. 🙂 The stories are really taking shape and I’m enjoying their transformations. All are great. This is really tough!
Oh it is so difficult. I feel as though i am circling around the same ones. A literary tug of war with great sentences as the rope. Looking forward to the next round.
My picks have changed a few times, once because a new line grabbed me and once because one of my original choices didn’t make it to the next round. It’s a tougher vote each round, but one of my early favs is still going, yay! 😉
Oh man, one vote is HARD! At this point there is enough content that I have moved away from the individual sentences and now I focus more on the story I see emerging. Everyone has done a really great job, congrats on everyone who made it to this round!
It was between two for me, and I will be very sad if my second choice doesn’t make it to the next round because then I’ll always wonder….
Huh, my initial favourite has been ditched due to the one only rule. I’m finding this very interesting / surprising. Can’t wait to see the final results.