THE ARCHIVE ROOM

Celia Pellegrini has directed Saltwick House Historic Estate for eight years. She knows the documentary record better than anyone living — which is why, when a letter appears under the archive room door in late September, she goes immediately to the flat-file drawer third from the left to verify the documentation.

The letter is correct.

The handwriting belongs to Edmund Saltwick. He built the house. He died in 1931.

She writes back.

Before she can decide whether any of this constitutes a professional obligation to disclose — there's the second letter, which corrects one of her corrections and is right about that too; a third paragraph in November that has nothing to do with the library catalogue and everything to do with what November light does to the east-facing windows; a January letter that begins with her name instead of her title; thirty pages of dissertation she stopped writing six years ago for reasons she has told no one, until she tells him; a question he asks her in the fourth month that she has been trying not to answer since October; the night she slides a letter under the door at 11pm and stands in the dark hall listening to the silence on the other side before going home, and arrives the next morning to find his response to the letter she hadn't written yet, because he has read hers carefully enough to know how she would finish her own sentences; and the week the archive room door frame fails and the renovation is scheduled and she writes him a letter about what she would lose that she sends before she can revise it into something more composed.

She's spent eight years organizing her life the way she organizes the archive — preserving everything, presenting only what is suitable, keeping nothing out of place, which means nothing that could surprise her. He's spent ninety-five years understanding that correctness is not the same as presence, and that the most precise thing he has done in all that time is build a room organized around the conviction that what a person puts on paper is the truest account of who they are — and then wait for the right person to read it.

A haunted epistolary romance with coastal New England atmosphere, dry period wit, and a love story built entirely in letters before it can exist anywhere else. The kind of book where the moment he finally becomes visible, you realize you've known him for twenty chapters already — and that was always the point.

WHY THIS WILL SELL

→ The epistolary mechanic is structurally absent from the current Hauntings top 20 — no title in Romance > Paranormal > Ghosts builds its romance through correspondence before physical visibility; this package enters a real gap in a Hot Niche (6.8 sales-to-comp) category

→ "Ghost with opinions about the interpretive signage" is inherently shareable — the premise reads as a screenshot and a caption; organic BookTok and romance Instagram discovery without requiring the author to build a clip

→ Literary romance crossover is a commercially significant secondary audience — Rainbow Rowell and Mary Ann Shaffer comp readers are active Amazon buyers who also shop the paranormal category; this package credibly claims both

→ Dual-category positioning in Romance > Paranormal > Ghosts (primary, Hot Niche) and Romance > Paranormal > General (Hot Niche, 40–65 daily sales per top 20 title) with a clean tertiary path into Literature & Fiction > Ghost

→ Hauntings shelf branding compounds discoverability from launch — a two-book shelf with The Estate Sale builds also-bought positioning without requiring shared characters or plot continuity; series readthrough in warm paranormal runs 55–70%

TROPES: • Epistolary romance • Ghost who cannot appear in person (until he can) • Slow burn built through language • Competent heroine who has forgotten what she wants • Found family (museum staff and docents) • Vulnerability through the written word • Touch as a late and earned event • HEA

HEAT LEVEL: Moderate / Open Door — the first two-thirds of the novel builds intimacy entirely through letters; physical warmth arrives in the final act, after everything it is built on. Intimacy scenes are flagged for Dial the Heat™ adjustment throughout.

PERFECT FOR FANS OF: Rainbow Rowell, Mary Ann Shaffer, TJ Klune, and Emily Henry

WHAT'S INSIDE THIS PACKAGE

⭐️ Story Premise — high-concept pitch, elevator pitch, and Market-Matched™ analysis with dual-category Hot Niche positioning, competitive analysis against three comp titles with differentiation, and full series potential for the Hauntings shelf

⭐️ Complete Codex — full story bible with complete profiles for Celia Pellegrini and Edmund Saltwick (four voice-example passages each), supporting cast of four, Saltwick House and archive room at full sensory depth, letter-by-letter correspondence timeline across the six-month story span, epistolary mechanic rules and limitations, heat-level guidance with four Dial the Heat™ flagged scenes, and series seeds for the Hauntings shelf

⭐️ Chapter-by-Chapter Outline — 28 chapters + epilogue with full scene breakdowns, emotional beats, all fourteen letters outlined in detail with key passages, word-count targets for every chapter type (letter chapters 400–600 words; scene chapters 900–1,100 words; Act 3 chapters 2,500–3,500 words), and ending hooks throughout

⭐️ AI-Ready Chapter Prompts — copy-paste-ready, fully self-contained prompt for every chapter and the epilogue; each prompt includes complete story context, character voice examples, the letter's specific content or the scene's specific beats, and heat-level adjustment guidance at the four flagged moments

⭐️ Marketing Copy — Amazon listing with categories and all 7 keywords, back cover copy, 50-word short description, Instagram feed post and story series, Facebook post, newsletter announcement with three subject lines, five reader magnet concepts with landing page copy, reader targeting, series marketing copy, and two Ideogram cover prompts (Market Match + Market Match + Twist)

⭐️ Market-Matched™ Brief — market snapshot table across three categories, five data-backed "why this will sell" points, competitive positioning against three comp titles, full 7-keyword strategy table with per-keyword targeting rationale, and launch positioning with pricing strategy, cover direction, and Hauntings shelf series strategy

One buyer. One story. Exclusively yours.