QK Agent Round: Love in the Time of Prosciutto

Title: Time Passages

Entry Nickname: Love in the Time of Prosciutto

Word count: 79K

Genre: YA Fantasy

Query:

Sixteen-year-old Gemma DiMarco was sure she'd found her forever love in Ben Hartwell, but when her unbalanced ex-boyfriend murders Ben then kills himself, Gemma is left reliving the awful moment day after day. With support from her best friend and close-knit Italian family, Gemma finally begins to accept that Ben is truly gone. Death is forever, right?  What’s done can’t be undone. Unless she could stop the tragedy from happening in the first place.

When a boy claiming to be her guardian angel comes into the family deli and says he can do just that, Gemma’s beyond skeptical. But with a touch, the boy subverts the laws of time and space, and sends her back to the pivotal moment leading to Ben's murder, allowing her to change the outcome.

Back in the present, Ben is alive. But so is Gemma’s ex, and in this altered reality, he’s still her boyfriend. Gemma believes, to keep Ben safe, she must find the original murder weapon and turn her ex in to the police. Meanwhile, due to Gemma’s time traveling, the family deli is going under and her parents’ once-happy marriage is headed off a cliff. With memories from her new life rapidly replacing the old ones, Gemma soon won’t remember the murder, the angel, or changing the past at all. She has only a few days to thwart her ex, get back with Ben, and save her family, before the old memories fade completely and her chance for a happy ending vanishes too.

TIME PASSAGES combines the romance of ABOUT TIME with the playfulness of THE GOOD PLACE. It will appeal to readers of THE GIRL FROM EVERYWHERE by Heidi Heilig or THE EDGE OF EVERYTHING by Jeff Giles. 

I’m a writer and script researcher from Los Angeles, CA, and a member of SCBWI. 

Thank you for your consideration.

First 250:

Exiting the BART station, I book it three blocks to the deli, late for work. A breeze too cold for August blows in my face, making me hunch into my jacket. The low-hanging clouds, floating overhead like clumps of dirty cotton balls, do nothing to lighten my mood.

This early, the taquerias and fruit markets along Mission Street are still dark, but light glows from Poulsen’s Bakery. The delicious aroma drifting into the street reminds my stomach I skipped breakfast this morning. Baking bread and spices. Cinnamon.

A memory. Ben and me and a bag of cinnamon rolls. “Still warm, Gemma.” Buttery and sweet, we cut first period to eat them in the park. A cop car drives by and we duck behind the picnic table, fingers entwined, choking back the laughter. It’s so vivid, I’m back there, feeling Ben’s cinnamon-scented breath on my cheek, tasting the sugar on his lips. Remembering feels like a stab to the gut now, raw and fresh, because we’ll never have moments like that again.

“Good morning,”

The voice comes out of nowhere, jarring me back to the present. A boy pads along beside me.

Talk and dark, a ring of keys jingles on his belt loop.

We’re alone on the street, with the deli still several doors down. I have zero interest in talking, so I smile, nod and walk faster. Take the hint, dude.

Nope. He quickens his pace to keep up. Why do boys think they can invade a girl’s space anytime they feel like it?