WHAT’S INSIDE THIS PACKAGE
⭐️ Story Premise — high-concept pitch, elevator pitch, full Market-Matched™ analysis with dual-category positioning (Romantic Suspense + Cold Case Mystery), three comp titles with differentiation statements, complete fair-play suspense architecture with seven-clue ledger, three red herrings, and full dramatic irony map
⭐️ Complete Codex — full story bible with dual POV investigators (Sable Varden and Idris Ashvale), four year-round island characters each with a distinct function in the evidence chain, five primary settings with unique sensory atlases, eight-day master timeline with age and season consistency checks, Voice & Style Guide with four example passages per POV character, investigation architecture in Quick Reference format with evidence chain table and Knowledge State by Chapter tracker, and series seeds for two future Sable Varden investigations
⭐️ Chapter-by-Chapter Outline — 27 chapters + epilogue with scene beats, emotional register, trust arc beat, case arc beat, clue and red herring tracking, concealment map, reader tension target, chapter-ending hook, and chapter-specific sensory anchor for every chapter
⭐️ AI-Ready Chapter Prompts — one fully self-contained, copy-paste-ready prompt per chapter and epilogue; every prompt includes POV character, timeline position, full continuity facts, scene beats, key objects and dialogue, voice guidance, and chapter-ending hook; no prior context required
⭐️ Marketing Copy — Amazon listing with categories and seven keywords, full book description and extended version, back cover copy (two versions), 50-word short description, Facebook and Instagram copy, newsletter announcement with three subject lines and two full email bodies, reader magnet ideas, dual-audience reader targeting, series marketing with three-book hooks, launch positioning, and Ideogram cover image prompt
⭐️ Market-Matched™ Brief — market snapshot table, five “why this will sell” data points, competitive positioning statement, seven-keyword strategy table with per-keyword rationale, and full launch positioning across categories, pricing, cover direction, and series strategy
One buyer. One story. Exclusively yours.
THE LAST FERRY
She built her career on noticing things other people miss. She just didn’t expect the thing she’d miss to be sitting across the cabin on the last ferry of the season.
Travel writer Sable Varden boards the MV Carra Mara with a magazine assignment, a camera bag, and the professional habit of noticing everything. The only other passenger gives her his name, a vague profession, and answers that are technically true and somehow still completely closed.
Then the island closes in behind them.
Before Sable can write her feature and leave, there’s a harbourmaster with a second drawer she’s never opened for anyone, a retired fisherman whose hands give him away even when his mouth won’t, and the man in Room 5 who knows the Carra Straits the way you only know water you’ve worked a case in. A marine chart he’s never shown anyone, unfolded on the bar table at midnight. The moment she realizes he’s been building the same map she has — from a completely different direction.
She’s spent three years making herself smaller after a story that was true and documented and dismantled anyway. He’s spent two years alone with a sealed report and the knowledge that being right wasn’t enough. A remote Atlantic island in October is about to require something from both of them that neither has been willing to give anyone since the last time it cost them everything.
Slow-burn romantic suspense with fair-play mystery bones and an Atlantic island that’s been keeping a secret for eighteen months. The kind of book where the mystery and the love story are the same question — and the answer arrives in the last ferry’s wake.
WHY THIS WILL SELL
→ Island/no-exit container is the top-performing setting variant in romantic suspense — forced proximity + weather clock + no exit solve the genre’s pacing problem from page one without authorial contrivance
→ Dual-audience reach without diluting either genre — romance readers and mystery readers are asking the same question simultaneously; the book doesn’t ask either to read past the other genre to get what they came for
→ Travel-writer heroine is an underserved archetype with built-in series infrastructure — professional observer + independently mobile + new assignment every book = series engine that doesn’t require retrofitting
→ Fair-play mystery architecture drives re-read and word-of-mouth — all seven clues planted before their payoffs; the book rewards the reader who spots the names slip in Chapter 2 and the reader who finds it on the second read
→ Q3/Q4 cover aesthetic aligns with peak seasonal demand — grey-green-gold Atlantic palette reads immediately as autumn atmospheric thriller-romance; no seasonal campaign adjustment required at launch
→ Comp author ecosystem is high-conversion — Foley and Ware readers actively search for the next island thriller; this one delivers the mystery architecture they expect plus the earned slow burn they rarely get
TROPES
- Isolated Island Setting
- Forced Proximity
- Slow-Burn Romance
- Stranger Danger / He Knew Who She Was
- Secrets & Lies / Hidden Identity
- Cold Case / Cover-Up
- Travel Writer Heroine
- Dual Investigation Structure
- He’s Been Here Before
- The Truth She Was Sent to Find Isn’t the Truth on the Island
- Trust Earned Incrementally
- Two People Alone with the Same Wound
HEAT LEVEL: Moderate
PERFECT FOR FANS OF: Lucy Foley, Ruth Ware, Tana French, and Adrian McKinty