Blood Relations, or: Can I Find an Agent That Promises to be Really Chill about Fucked-Up Shit?
Hey, I’m Amanda! I’m a California-based author and horror enthusiast. I’ve self-published in the past, including my novella Connection, but with my first full-length psychological thriller novel Blood Relations, I’ve decided to at least attempt to go the tradpub way.
Blood Relations begins when Finn Laird, a college student and the grandson of a wealthy Long Island advertising magnate, wakes up to a knife at his throat. The wielder is his cousin Laurent, who was blinded in his right eye by Finn when they were children. Seeking revenge, Laurent kidnaps Finn, takes him back to his house, and chains him to the bed. Finn battles between trying to escape and trying not to sympathize with his captor, who, after all, is a family member he has grievously wronged. The narrative moves between three timelines– the kidnapping, the last family reunion before the kidnapping, and the aftermath of the blinding when the boys were children. In all three timelines, Finn must reckon with the violence he has enacted as he fights for control over his circumstances.
Please note that Blood Relations contains the following triggers: incest, sexual assault, kidnapping, graphic violence, and bullying. If reading about any of those subjects will trigger you, please take care of yourself and give the book a pass. At the end of the day, it’s just a book, and your mental health matters more.
As you can imagine from the above triggers, the book is probably going to be a bit of a hard sell in terms of marketability. Since I’ve just started receiving my first few rejections, I thought I’d make this blog to promote it, as well as chronicle whether or not this is truly unsellable. Worst comes to worst, I’ll selfpub, but I wanted to at least give the traditional way a shot.
If the book sounds like something you might like to read, or you just want to support writing about fucked up shit, give the blog a follow!
