NaNoPITCHMo 6: TULIP SECRETS

So this week for my pitches I'll be doing a group of five that could easily be put together in a loosely-connected series. The first of them is called TULIP SECRETS.

I actually tried writing this book a few years ago, and I had some major problems with the three acts of the novel not coming together at all. I think I could rewrite it with much better results if I go about it a bit differently and change some of the plot elements.

And I'd really love to do that. Tulip Mania absolutely fascinates me, and I love the potential of the magic in this one. Hopefully one day I'll get my act together and write it the way it was meant to be written.

Pitch:

In the mid-1630s, Tulip Mania gripped the city of Amsterdam. Buyers and sellers gathered in taverns auctioning the bulbs for extraordinary prices—sometimes as high as the cost of a house. But none was more valued than the Semper Augustus, a rare red-and-white-striped flower.

Jacoba is the tavern-keeper’s daughter responsible for the mania. Those who bring her a tulip can ask for anyone to fall in love with them—the more rare and valuable the tulip, the stronger the effect. But the magic comes at a cost—the bearer must divulge their deepest secret or the magic won’t take hold.

Jacoba has secrets of her own: the truth of her parentage, the bargains she has made, the name of her true love. When a Semper Augustus is stolen and brought to her to use, she finds herself drawn into a web of secrets that threaten to unmask everything she wishes to keep hidden.