An Agent's Inbox #12

Dear Ms. Marini:

Running from post-college responsibilities, Amanda Smith travels to Pécs, Hungary to research her grandpapa's beginnings. Instead, she falls in love with the history and culture of the city, a Gypsy dancer named Luca, and Luca’s family. A shocking photograph of her grandpapa wearing a hammer and sickle makes her abandon her search for answers and focus on her relationship with Luca. She agrees to marry him despite her family’s protestations.

Before the wedding, her grandpapa’s brother comes into town with family secrets that exposes old wounds and a connection with Luca’s clan. As the Gypsy family rejects Amanda, no one tells her why except to acknowledge her innocence. Even her fiancé walks away because of clan loyalties. Now she questions everything she knew about her beloved grandpapa and must repair the wounds she didn’t intend to open.

I am a regular attendee of DFW Writer’s Conference and have recently spent time in Pécs, Hungary, exploring the city and its culture.

WITHOUT BORDERS is multi-cultural/women’s fiction complete at 80,000 words.

Below you will find the first 250 words of the novel. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
L.K.


WITHOUT BORDERS

Music distracted Amanda from her search for her mother’s gift. Wild, erratic tones that couldn’t be ignored. She dropped the scarf she was considering and followed the sounds through the mild scattering of shoppers, down the street she had become so familiar with in the past week of her visit. She turned a corner past a peach-colored building.

In front of the café Amanda visited often, a plump woman in blue jeans fiddled on a cracked violin. Her dark hair danced and jerked with the movements of her playing. A boy, no older than fifteen, sat behind her beating a drum, and a man whose face had been baked in the sun provided harmony with his accordion. In his yellow and crimson tunic, he was the only one who wore the traditional garb of his people. Amanda had read Gypsy bands had gone out of style, yet this group of musicians gathered an audience on the corner of a walking path in Pécs, Hungary.

A gasp in the crowd drew Amanda’s attention to a man who somersaulted from out of nowhere. He must have been lurking among the spectators, waiting for his cue. He wore a gold vest over his bronze muscles, looking reminiscent of idol statues often seen in India. His quick steps moved to the music and he slapped his body in a rhythmic percussion. The audience clapped as the music escalated faster and louder as the dancer kept in time.