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So the revised proposal and first chapter is wending it’s way to my editor. Here’s a taste of what she’ll be looking at.
OLD OPENING
Walking up the hill from the henhouse with her basket full of eggs, Ella glanced down toward the calm surface of the pond and supposed that almost drowning was her earliest memory. It was certainly the first memory that she could claim as wholly her own—not influenced by stories her family told. No, the memory of drowning was certain and clear.
NEW OPENING
Ella and the dog days of summer arrived at her parents’ West Virginia farm on a Monday afternoon. Ella soon tired of hearing that she must have brought the heat with her, but it was a small price to pay. She needed to escape. She was looking for the kind of peace that she had only ever found on the farm. She longed for the quiet and the chance to get right up next to nature—so close it touched her whether she wanted it to or not. Breaking her engagement to Mark had sent her running home and she had found a measure of peace in the rhythm of farm life—the garden, the chickens, her family’s easy familiarity. What Ella couldn’t know on this visit was that her grandmother would shatter her fragile peace before the day was out.