An Agent's Inbox #21

Dear Ms. Johnson-Blalock,

Your appreciation of female power-driven narrative attracts me to your representation. If you enjoy tales of growth, diversity, and the art world, my novel may interest you.

Down-and-out stripper Velvet spends her nights dancing at the Boom Boom Room, Tampa’s dirtiest nightclub, and dreading the club owner’s demands for sex. So when eccentric painter Byron Beauvoisin offers her a job as muse and nude model at his avant-garde art studio on the refined side of town, she goes for it. 

There she befriends his clan of devoted students and blossoms into a confident woman with creative potential. But the experimental practices of the art studio spark indignation in the community, followed by a protest and police questioning.

Then Byron is brutally murdered. Velvet is the sole witness, but who would believe the testimony of a barely conscious ex-stripper? Not the police and certainly not Byron’s neighbors. In fact, they may be hiding the killer. 

Velvet must choose whether to face or flee a community that would rather see her dead, all while balancing two potential lovers and a shot at fame.

PAINT THE RAIN is a contemporary women’s fiction novel of 87,000 words. I am an active member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and the Florida Writers Association. Below you will find the first 250 words.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

G.L.

PAINT THE RAIN

Byron Beauvoisin’s first visit to the Boom Boom Room didn’t affect me much, except for the fact that he turned down the private dance I offered. Or the fact that my boss Matty almost beat the crap out of him. Nothing unusual. That clammy Sunday night, after the dinner crowd petered out and left the place dead, a giant worry weighed me down--how to make the request that had burned in my brain for over two weeks. 

Sweat started under my arms at the thought of a confrontation with Matty. I’d almost asked twice but wimped. Tonight I’d walk straight up to him and say, Please, Matty, please let me quit hooking. 

I loitered at my station in the dressing room, brainstorming reasons he should help me clean up my life. My only family, Grammie, died four months after I turned eighteen. Since her loss, I vowed to purge the coke habit. And I did it, even though it took two energy-sucking stints of rehab. My dance style proved I’d transformed myself--I was Boom Boom’s best. Not that ‘best’ meant much in this sagging mildew shack on seedy Nebraska Ave. Point was, if he had been a caring, sensitive boss, Matty would have wanted to help me be my best self.

But caring, sensitive dudes didn’t manage strip joints in the nastiest neighborhood of Tampa, and Matty sure as h*** wasn’t a self-improvement kind of guy.