QK Round 3: From Gutters to Galleries vs Mother of All Custody Battles

Title: Only When I Fall
Entry Nickname: From Gutters to Galleries
Word Count: 80K
Genre: Upmarket Fiction

Query:

If she could find a better paying job than the Museum of Fine Arts café, Mia Clarke wouldn't have to keep selling heroin. As a single mom, it kills her to contribute to people's afflictions—especially Tris, her former partner in both love and graffiti art. When he stops by the café for a couple of grams and accidentally leaves behind a gorgeous painting, Mia anonymously enters it into an online art contest hoping to help him turn his life around.

Soon, the image goes viral, sparking a widespread search for a troubled loner with a singular gift. But not everyone searching for Tris means him well. A posh art dealer with a trail of disappearing protégés, a social network moderator obsessed with the anonymous contest entry, and a groundskeeper required to evict the homeless are all closing in on the abandoned utility room under a Charles River bridge where Tris has been staying.

Unaware of the pursuers closing in, Tris must shake the heroin in his veins and leave his old life behind or risk losing not only his life's work and the person he loves, but the very life to which he clings. While Mia, weighed down by her guilt over being both Tris's dealer and the one person who can help him find the recognition his talent deserves, vows to quit selling drugs and to fight to save the man she wishes she didn't love—for herself, for him, and for the daughter he never knew he had.

First 250:

The Museum of Fine Arts was humming. Patrons clopped around on marble tile toward the new Vermeer exhibit, loners sketched landscapes in their spiral pads, and tour guides directed groups between potted ferns from the European galleries to the Americas. An odd tang of coffee and parmesan wafted from the café on the first floor.

Mia Clarke wiped down table five, the edge of her full-sleeve tattoos peeking out from beneath the black uniform shirt cuffs buttoned at her wrists. She brushed a strand of pink hair behind her ear. As she rushed to take an order from a customer at the next table over, a different kind of customer stepped into the café.

She saw him out of the corner of her eye. He was hard to miss.

His dirty blonde hair was matted and fell past his shoulders like a neglected houseplant, its tendrils winding their way through his overgrown beard. Glancing around the room, he found an empty chair and slid into it. Their eyes met.

Finishing up with her customer, Mia closed her pad and wound her way through the maze of tables before stopping at his.

"Hey, Tris. Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

He sat hunched over the table, his eyes unreadable. "No thanks. Just a fruit cup."

A thin sigh escaped her lips. "How about a muffin or something?"

"Not today."


She knew he didn't care about the fruit. He came for the heroin she slipped inside.

Versus

Title: FINDING SETH
Entry Nickname: Mother of All Custody Battles
Word Count: 73K
Genre: Women’s Fiction

Query:

Lola Bishop has been to the end of her rope so many times she’s not sure she has enough antidepressants to keep her from tying it into a noose and slipping it around her neck. All she wants is to have a baby and raise a family with her husband, Paul. But their premature son doesn’t make it, and an emergency hysterectomy kills any future dreams of motherhood. More dark days follow in the form of depression and divorce papers. Then she discovers not only has Paul moved in with his young girlfriend, Iris, they’re also expecting a baby – a little boy they name Seth.

But Lola’s got to pull her act together when a car crash kills Paul and Iris and orphans Seth – now a toddler. Iris’s will has some glaring holes, but Paul’s will clearly names Lola as Seth’s guardian. At the same time Iris’s dad, who’s been caring for Seth since the accident, starts building his legal case to contest Paul’s will, Lola ponders whether she’s strong enough to raise the child her ex-husband had with his girlfriend. Steeling her heart, Lola jumps into the legal ring as she and Isaac try to outmaneuver each other in the mother of all custody battles.

First 250:

It was the receptionist at my gynecologist’s office who clued me in that something major was afoot. Not that she said anything in particular – of course she can’t say anything. Medical privacy laws and all. But there’s no privacy law that prohibits a weird, high-pitched tone when calling my name, or an uncomfortable shiftiness palpable across the sliding glass divider.

No, there was no one in the office who said anything during my checkup. But my nurse gave me several odd, sideways glances. And Dr. Marta, the obstetrician who’d walked me through days darker than death, made a telling comment on my way out of the office. As she put her cool, clinical hand on my shoulder, she held it a beat longer than normal and asked: “How’s your friend Brenda these days?”

Brenda Gillis – one of my dearest friends on earth, despite all the crap I’ve put her through – has an uncanny knack for knowing exactly what’s going on in the lives of everyone in Glenhaven without being a busybody. While she flirts with the line of being a gossip, there’s no malice in her methods. Less paparazzi, more society columnist.

I called her immediately from my car. “Where are you?” I asked. “I just left Dr. Marta’s. Her whole staff was acting weird.”

Brenda sighed on the other end. “I’m taking the kiddos to Noodles before their piano lessons,” she said. “Do you want to meet me there? We need to talk.”