by Kristina Fluitt (@storiesandseeds.bsky.social)
Adult Romance
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Query
I am seeking representation for my contemporary romance novel with a magical twist, UNRELIABLE VISIONS. This 80k-word novel is about a woman who has visions of the future— that only sometimes come true. It could appeal to readers who enjoyed the paranormal romance in Ashley Poston's The Seven Year Slip and the slow burn of This Spells Love by Kate Robb.
When Lorelai Grant meets the handsome Travis Blake and sees a flash of his death on the 4th of July (only three weeks away), she does what any rational woman would do: she pretends to date him to save his life. But what happens if her vision and her feelings turn out to be true?
If there’s one thing 32-year-old Lorelai doesn’t do, it’s date. She learned long ago that having unpredictable and unbidden visions of the future makes dating complicated. Flashes of a cheating partner during a make-out session, listeria lurking on lettuce during a romantic lunch? Hard pass. Her visions are trouble; a bad bet in Vegas (she was sure she saw Black 35) has led to debt and a slimy encounter with a loan shark. Lorelai’s unreliable visions have paralyzed her with anxiety for years, and she has become an expert in ignoring them.
Yet when she bumps into Travis Blake, a rival journalist, and sees his death date, she is conflicted. Can she trust her interpretation of the vision? Her best friend, Hana, convinces her to fake-date Travis to secretly gather information and prevent his death. Does he have any death-defying hobbies or allergies that would explain a healthy 40-year-old dropping dead after fireworks? Fake dating is quickly complicated by real feelings, as Travis turns out to be kind, considerate, and sexy. He even babysits her delinquent mother's dog— the dog responsible for Lorelai's complicated relationship with Benadryl. Lorelai wrestles with telling Travis the truth and imploding her fake-turned-real relationship, dodging the menacing advances of her loan shark, and keeping a secret that would destroy her relationship with bestie Hana. There’s never been a worse time to have unreliable visions.
I have a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a master’s degree in occupational therapy, which I use to work with children with developmental disabilities. My short story, Bird Days: Living with Chronic Illness, won Honorable Mention in the Writer’s Digest 2024 Annual Writing Competition. I hope you take a chance and read my novel, UNRELIABLE VISIONS, which won the RevPit 2025 contest. It was an absolute joy to write.
Thank you for your consideration.
First Five Pages
Lorelai Grant knew one thing with certainty: she was going to die on her 64th birthday. There was no way she could possibly know this, except for the fact that she simply did. Which meant, at the age of thirty-two, she was solidly straddling the middle of her life.
Crap.
At thirty-two, she expected to have a home, a husband, and a horde of children. Most thirty-two-year-olds possessed this trifecta of “h’s.” Lorelai, instead, had a trifecta of “ds”: depression, debt, and Dog. The latter would have been a plus, except that Lorelai was very allergic to dogs and hadn’t wanted one in the first place. Her mother had dropped off the floppy-eared Beagle for her to watch while she went on “tour.” That had been three weeks ago, and Lorelai suspected that her mother’s tour had more to do with Moscato than music.
So now, she was late to work because she had taken a Benadryl the night before after Dog had camped out on her pillow. This meant she had slept through the drone of her alarm. Again.
Which, honestly, was fine, because she could already tell it was going to be one of those days.
For those who had procured the trifecta of “h’s”, the phrase “one of those days” usually meant a surly toddler or a traveling husband. But for Lorelai, this meant something else entirely.
She couldn’t explain it, she couldn’t predict it, and apparently, she couldn’t change it. But some days she woke up and she saw things. Things that she had no business seeing—like the date of her death. Or the fact that the postman would soon be sleeping with someone named Berta.
On “one of those days” every choice became weighted with importance. If she wore heels, she would have pelvic floor prolapse in five years. If she crossed the street at Bay Street, she would be hit by a bus. If she ate bananas, she would get a rash (Okay, this one was true due to her allergy to the potassium-laden fruit. Sadly, Lorelai was destined to live a potassium-less life).
Every choice became weighted as the future pressed against her eyelids. And every vision was merely a glimpse: a series of seemingly random scenes that forced Lorelai to intuit their meaning. Which meant she often interpreted them wrong.
Today’s predicament was the following: go to work and risk catching the flu (Was her co-worker actually ill? Lorelai would have to show up to work to find out). Or, stay home and—she closed her eyes—the vision was murky but she had a distinct feeling that if she stayed home, she would be fired from work and end up homeless, with only her flaky mother’s sneeze-inducing dog to keep her warm at night.
Work pandemic for the win.
Lorelai was already late, so she decided she might as well straighten her hair and eat a fiber-filled breakfast first. Apparently, fiber was healthy for middle-aged women like herself. Her best friend Hana scoffed whenever Lorelai called herself “middle-aged” but then again, Lorelai hadn’t told her about that particular vision; it seemed tactless to reveal the date of one’s death.
So, Lorelai brushed her glossy auburn hair over her shoulder as she bent down to feed the mangy pup and tried to enjoy the middle of her loveless life.
Lorelai then went outside and stared at her transportation methods. Bike—great for the environment but she was getting flashes of a fiery crash on Bay Street. (Why was it always Bay Street?), or car. She walked over to her car and placed her hand on its shiny red paint, waiting patiently for a vision.
When her mind remained deliciously blank, Lorelai decided that car was the way to go.
She settled in behind the wheel, thankful that her father had paid cash for this car ten years prior, which meant that it was not adding to the ball and chain of debt around her ankle. At least until it needed another repair—which according to last month's vision wouldn’t be for another two years and three months. Lovely. If it were true.
The fact that her visions did not always come true severely messed with Lorelai’s mind. However, what messed with her mind even more, was that sometimes they did. So she was forced to interpret each with deliberate care, just in case the fate of someone’s life did, in fact, depend on whether or not she ordered pepperoni on her pizza. Because this was the thing about her visions: there was sometimes a small window where, if she intervened correctly, she could change the future.
She eased out of her driveway and turned up the heavy metal to drown out the noise in her head. At a red light, she felt an inward tug and rolled down her window. Three seconds later an unhoused man appeared, and Lorelai handed him the McDonald’s gift card that she had purchased a month ago for this very reason. She made sure to make eye contact with him and didn’t break it until he did. Something in her chest eased as she drove off.
Hana thought her “intuitions” were strange. Quirky even. But she never made fun of Lorelai and always understood when she changed plans last minute. Ever since Lorelai had ordered her friend off a flight that had ended up crashing into the Atlantic, Hana had taken Lorelai’s word as law.
Except for one thing: Hana adamantly refused to respect Lorelai’s no-dating decree. Hana maneuvered sneaky introductions to handsome men almost as often as she changed her hair color. So, almost weekly. No matter how many times Lorelai painstakingly described the agony of having flashes of a person’s imminent STI over bagel and lox, Hana kept throwing men her way.
The glistening forty-story building that housed Lorelai’s office appeared before her, and Lorelai hoped that today was not one of the days that Hana was meddling with her love life. She eased her car into her parking space and took a moment to collect herself. Lorelai was a journalist. She reported on the best and worst of humanity, and today she fervently hoped it would be the best.
Which was a delusion. Her boss, Hugo Dawn, was obsessed with doomsday news. It had begun almost as a joke and had quickly spiraled into terrifying when he realized just how many more views he got reporting on the worst of humanity.
Lorelai found it strange that Hugo didn’t connect how often she got lucky in predicting a story. “I think you should eat lunch at the new Italian place today. Bring Pete,” she’d said. Pete, the cameraman, was able to capture the armed robbery on tape while Hugo nearly choked on a meatball.
“We haven’t done a story on the art museum in a while,” she’d said, and coincidentally they were there the day the teenage vandal urinated on the Degás.
Hugo didn’t question her luck, but he profited off of it. Which was why, when Lorelai arrived to work two hours and fifteen minutes late that day, Hugo just saluted her from across the room. She gave him a wane smile and sank into her cubicle. Her head was already pounding and the visions hadn’t even properly begun.
It was days like today that Lorelai wished she could render herself invisible. She didn’t want to be seen or approached.
Every single person who approached her risked unknowingly revealing their futures. And most of these futures were unpleasant at best.
“You look like shit,” Hana leaned over her cubicle and passed Lorelai a tepid coffee. Lorelai assumed it had been hot at the time she should have arrived at work.
Lorelai ran her hand over her straightened hair and frowned. She’d made an effort.
“Not your hair,” Hana pointed under her own eyes, and Lorelai understood then. Her eyes were likely still red and puffy even after the Benadryl. Damn mutt.
“Yeah, Dog made himself pretty comfortable in my bed last night,” Lorelai said, opening her laptop. Her emails pinged with notifications.
“Lor, you can’t let him on your bed!” Hana scolded.
Lorelai just sighed. How did you explain to your best friend that the chore of training a borrowed dog was too daunting to attempt? That it took just enough effort to get to sleep when the pounding of her own heart filled the entire apartment. She had hardly realized Dog was there through the fog of her existential doom.
I really need to refill my Zoloft.
“Just drop him at the pound,” Hana said.
“Maybe,” Lorelai said, but they both knew she wouldn’t do it. She would keep Dog out of some misplaced loyalty to the woman who gave her life—but forgot that her spawn was allergic to animals.
“You know I would take him if Todd were not so adamant against pets,” Hana said, and Lorelai saw the flash of guilt across her friend’s face.
Ah yes, Todd. Or Turd as Lorelai loving referred to him in her inner monologue. She had watched her confident, bubbly friend twist herself into a Todd-shaped pretzel over the past few months. Pre-Todd, Hana would have taken Dog in a heartbeat.
“Hey,” Hana’s voice was suddenly serious and low, and for a split second, Lorelai was afraid she had spoken out loud.