Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Hey guys,

I'm looking for a beta reader or critique partner for my latest manuscript. Here's a bit of a summary. Let me know if you're interested.

Now that she's reaching the darker side of her thirty-ninth year, Ronnie McGallen is restless with her desires to search for something more. All of her life, Ronnie's done what other people have told her to do, and where has that landed her exactly? With a nice enough husband she doesn't love, a nice enough job that's long lost its appeal, and a life that isn't hers. To put it simply: Ronnie went straight from being a Smashing Pumpkins obsessed, over-acheiving, hard-rock-loving college student to a bored, 10th grade english teacher who only goes to concerts if they're acoustic and if her and her husband have the option of sitting down.

Yes, it's time to branch out, Ronnie decides. Time to get wild and figure out about all of this life that she's been missing. At least, this is until Ronnie accidentally discovers Leighlah Bell, a sweeter than pie, Southern belle waitress, who Ronnie can't stop thinking about. It's innocent at first. Mere intruige. Perhaps more than a bit of attraction. But when these thoughts turn into feelings and these feelings into a relationship--well, that may be a little more 'life' than Ronnie had bargained for.

Maybe getting older doesn't mean getting wiser. Maybe getting older just means finally having to face all of the things we buried during our youth.

(c) Gina Blechman May 2011

Hi Gina,

Wow - you've got a great premise going there. I recently completed my first novel and am waiting to hear back on my queries so I've got a little time to be a beta reader or critique partner.

My story, "Annie and Will", describes what happens when a sixteen-year-old girl and her eighteen-year-old adopted brother fall in love. It's a family drama that follows the Gunderson family and the relationship between Annie and Will from Will's arrival as a ten-year-old orphan to his shocking and heart wrenching departure. Will's adoptive father, Reverend Carl Gunderson, is bent on utilizing Will's sizable trust fund to his own advantage while his natural father, Duke Callahan, is forced to maintain an arm-length's relationship with the boy in order to keep the truth from his wife, Kay. Over the eight years that Will is with the Gundersons, Annie's feelings for him evolve from big brother adoration to deep love. When Reverend Gunderson realizes what is happening between Annie and Will, he seizes a lurid opportunity to try to separate Will from both his money and Annie.

Let me know if you're interested. Hope to hear from you soon.

John Hopkins