Status

Rights of Use is a 54,000-word novel in its final revisions. It needs an agent and a publishing home.

This book was "done" in late 2012 for the second time. Then an awesome (blazingly-obvious-how-did-I-miss-that) plot idea struck in summer 2013. I finished writing the new sections in January and am working with my super-awesome-critical-but-still-nice critique group on a chapter-by-chapter "Integrated Systems Reading Test". The test should be complete and feedback incorporated by Cleveland Concotion 2014.

Teaser

Sarah Anderson thought moving to Pittsburgh and having summer homework was the end of her world until strange men broke into her house and carried her away. An undercover Air Force officer assures her his team is coming to the rescue, but in case they fail, he gives her a choice: resign to be implanted with a bad alien or accept a good one that won't completely control her instead. Her choice seems moot when the team shows up and leads all nineteen kidnapped women toward a field of flying saucers--until she and a handful of others are recaptured and watch the Air Force fly away without them. They're left to face the aliens alone.

Playlist

• "Purple Spaceships Over Yattan" by Stackridge
• "Rings of Saturn" by Louis Belogenis
• "Hold Fast" by MercyMe
• "Fragile" by Sting
• "Mad World" by Gary Jules
• "Silent Lucidity" by Queensryche
• "Concrete Girl" by Switchfoot
• "Angel By Your Side" by Francesca Battistelli
• "Du Kannst Nicht Alles Haben" by the Wise Guys

Reviews and Comments

Ella Manley

"In my humble opinion, [the] writing is pretty unique.... It kind of reminds me of a few psychological thriller books I read, but without so much of the thriller part. They were all about short-term suspense and Fridge Logic ... whereas your book, while still about how people relate to each other, is about the expanded opportunities afforded by having an alien living in your head. It's almost like a coming of age story (Jane Eyre!) mixed with an action adventure story (pick a novel that has a Greek letter in the title i.e. The Omega Distraction) with a whole bunch of plots getting juggled at once (like the Wheel of Time series). It's not transparently about promoting one point of view (like Connie Willis about chaos theory in Bellwether or Richard Adams about animal testing in The Plague Dogs) but it's not entirely without deeper meaning (like Piers Anthony's Xanth series)."