THE HUNTING GROUND

Calla Pryce spent twelve years inside serial killers' heads. She's walked thirty-one crime scenes, constructed the behavioral architecture of the worst people alive, and got very good at seeing exactly what someone is capable of — no matter how ordinary they look from the outside. Then Garrett Rourke walked free on a chain-of-custody question she's blamed herself for ever since. She left the Bureau before she could be pushed. She is done.

Then Garrett Rourke starts hunting again.

The Bureau pulls her back, and pairs her with Declan Rourke — the most controlled, perceptive detective she's ever worked with. Before she can finish rebuilding her profile of the offender, there's a three-hour drive where he answers her questions with exactly the right amount and she understands she is getting the managed version of an honest man, late nights in the command room after everyone else has left where the distance between them stops feeling like professionalism, a ridge road with a view of the whole county where she tells him she found a mislabeling in his data and he asks which radius she's using without addressing a single word of what she said, a conversation in his apartment at 11 p.m. where he tells her something about his family that is almost the truth, and the Saturday morning she opens the county database and finds the name she has been building toward — and sits at her kitchen table with it for four hours before she decides what to do.

She has spent her career convinced that wanting someone makes her less able to see them clearly. He has spent four years believing that protecting the people he loves is the same thing as being loyal to them. A federal investigation closing in from every angle is about to make them both prove it.

Dark romantic suspense for readers who want the attraction to cost something real. The kind of book where she knows and says nothing for three days, and you cannot put it down because you need to know if she was right to wait.

WHY THIS WILL SELL

→ MTS > Crime Fiction > Serial Killers sits at 7.3 sales-to-comp (Hot Mainstream) with ~161 daily sales per top 20 title — and only ~22,000 competing titles, a manageable entry point for this cell

→ Romance > Romantic Suspense > Suspense secondary placement gives dual-category reach: ~294 daily sales per top 20 title against only ~1,961 competing titles — the most favorable ratio in this data set

→ The morally grey hero carrying an active secret is the dominant engine in the current RS top 20 — this package delivers it at higher stakes and higher heat than most titles in the lane

→ "She knows and says nothing" is the most-discussed dark RS beat on BookTok right now — the three-chapter delay is structurally built for social share

→ Standalone positioning matches the MTS market: 53% of MTS top 100 are standalones, with series seeds embedded for two future books when you're ready

→ Dual POV gives readers both sides of the dramatic irony from Chapter 8 onward — the binge-read mechanic that drives "I didn't sleep" reviews

TROPES

• Enemies to lovers • Forbidden attraction • Forced proximity • Morally grey hero • Dark secret • The clock is running • She knows and says nothing • He turned himself in • Dual POV dramatic irony • The three-day delay • "I trust your judgment" as a confession • The detective who was the danger all along

HEAT LEVEL

Open Door / High Heat — heat-flexible; three intimacy scenes are flagged for Dial the Heat™ adjustment with specific guidance at each setting; consent architecture is clean across the full heat range; her agency drives the first move at every level

COMP AUTHORS

Perfect for fans of: Loreth Anne White, Mary Kubica, Kendra Elliot, and Karin Slaughter

WHAT'S INSIDE THIS PACKAGE

⭐️ Story Premise — high-concept pitch, elevator pitch, and Market-Matched™ analysis with dual-category positioning (Crime Fiction > Serial Killers + Romantic Suspense > Suspense), competitive analysis with three comp titles, full Suspense Architecture section, hidden timeline of what actually happened in order, and fair-play audit mapping every planted clue to its payoff chapter

⭐️ Complete Codex — full story bible with main characters Calla Pryce and Declan Rourke, supporting cast of five (including Garrett, Beth Orland, and Yolanda Ferris), Millhaven County Pennsylvania setting with four distinct crime scene sensory profiles, chapter-by-chapter investigation timeline, dual first-person voice system with four example passages each for Calla (analytical, behavioral vocabulary, separates observation from conclusion) and Declan (operational, compressed, expands only when describing her), heat-flexible intimacy guidance with Dial the Heat™ flagging, and series seeds for two future books

⭐️ Chapter-by-Chapter Outline — 28 chapters + epilogue with scene breakdowns, emotional beats, key dialogue, chapter-specific sensory details, ending hooks, word count targets, and Dial the Heat™ flags with adjustment guidance for the three heat-flexible scenes

⭐️ AI-Ready Chapter Prompts — fully self-contained copy-paste prompts for all 28 chapters and epilogue with complete character context, voice examples, Dial the Heat™ instructions, and the full dramatic irony architecture embedded so the fresh-chat test passes for every prompt

⭐️ Marketing Copy — Amazon listing with categories and keywords, back cover copy, 50-word description, Instagram feed and story copy, Facebook post, TikTok/Reel caption, newsletter announcement with three subject lines, four reader magnet concepts, reader targeting guide, and two Ideogram cover prompts with cover direction notes

⭐️ Market-Matched™ Brief — market snapshot table for all three target categories, five data-backed "why this will sell" points, competitive positioning for two comp titles, seven-keyword KDP strategy with per-keyword rationale, and launch positioning covering categories, pricing, cover direction, and series readthrough strategy

One buyer. One story. Exclusively yours.