Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 145123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
The front door of my building resists my push, a gust of wind visibly sending debris of papers and leaves swirling down the street through the glass. As I lean my weight into it, the pressure breaks free and reverses, damn near jerking my shoulder out of its socket when the wind catches the door and rips it out toward the sidewalk.
The literary freak in me wants to use the simple action as symbolism for the next week and a half and how any shift in the wind could violently blow my existence in a new direction—but I’ll spare you the pain and drama.
Put simply, next Friday afternoon, I take Brooke Baker’s manuscript and every vestige of my hopes and dreams to the weekly editors’ meeting at Longstrand with a single goal: convince the president of the company (and everyone else) to publish in an untested genre with little notice, instead of the long-awaited spin-off to an already successful series, and to do it with gusto.
Longstrand is expecting Garden of Forever. It was pitched as a stand-alone book that is a spin-off from Brooke Baker’s worldwide blockbuster series called The Shadow Brothers.
And I’m about to give them something that isn’t even in the same fantasy genre.
Clearly, it’s going to take big balls, a lot of luck, and a hell of a pitch because the odds aren’t in my favor. Jonah Perish, Longstrand’s president and my boss, is amped to see what Garden of Forever will do on the tails of The Shadow Brothers’ Netflix success.
But after reading Accidental Attachment, I’m convinced Brooke Baker has created something unlike anything I’ve read before. And it deserves to be published. It deserves to be experienced and talked about and devoured by every reader imaginable, and I’m the guy who needs to make that happen.
No pressure or anything.
Ha. Yeah, right. It’s so much pressure that it’s practically choking me alive, and it’s why I convinced my sister Maureen into talking her husband Vinny, a world-renowned chef, into making my absolute favorite comfort food tonight—chicken parmigiana, extra mozzarella—on a night they would normally be working at the restaurant. It was a lot of work for them to find coverage, but I begged.
I need the comfort, and thankfully, Vinny’s parents are Italian, coming here just in time to make their bouncing baby boy first-generation American. He can cook sauce in his sleep, and when he’s awake, it’s even better.
The cool spring wind is brutal, making couples walk close and businessmen pop the collars on their suit jackets in an attempt to keep the whoosh of it off their necks. Friends chatter as they pop in and out of basement-level bars, and the neon open signs for restaurants flash in the windows.
I take the steps down to the subway at a jog and tuck myself down the tracks to escape the entrance of the wind. Several people on the platform have the same idea, but I keep a big enough distance not to have to make conversation.
The funny thing is that no one in New York who isn’t crazy tries to talk to you, but I’m so used to living in Nashville that I automatically assume small talk will be a part of my every journey.
The steel rails whine and shriek as the B train approaches, and I shove off my spot at the tiled wall and wait for the door to find its home. When it comes to a stop and a crowd of people exits, I wander into the car closest to me and take a seat in the most remote location possible—right at the front.
Once the train starts to move, I pull out my phone and open the manuscript for Accidental Attachment. I could call it research, I suppose, but that wouldn’t be fair to the genuine interest I have in reading some of these scenes over and over again. The emotional tug is powerful, and there’s nothing more exciting for a book lover than the feeling you get from a book you can believe.
The way she looks at me tells the story of a woman who knows. A woman who can see the dulling of the sparkle in my eyes and the flattening of the bounce in my step. A woman who’s been trod on just enough times to know the weight of my stomp is coming.
A woman who deserves so much better than the cowardly behavior of a man who’s worried about something as trivial as our jobs. A man who can see past the embarrassment we’d both face and will defend our love aggressively.
I want to be that man so badly. But I can’t let River lose her job over me or any other man. The work she put in to get here…it’d all be down the drain and washed away for good. Because no other station would hire her. The cloud of disgrace is both broad and dense, and the news world is far too petty to rise above it.