My new novel, 'At High Tide' is done. Seeking one great agent ...

Open letter to an agent:

'At High Tide' is a novel about a woman whose family's plate tectonics are shifting rapidly with a patriarch's descent into dementia. Texas transplant and newspaperwoman Keely Haydn Hunter returns to her iconic family home, High Tide, to help her family cope with grief and loss and change. However, as the tide goes out on Vancouver Island, it leaves behind all kinds of unexpected things – and it takes away other things that permanently disappear, hidden in the ocean depths. When Hunter comes back to the beach town of Haven Bay, she expects to encounter a certain amount of family baggage. What she doesn't expect is that a chilling family secret from her childhood will threaten life as her already fractured family knows it.

Terse, descriptive, poignantly funny – I believe this book will appeal to readers who have appreciated the work of writers like Karen Joy Fowler (The Jane Austen Book Club, Wit's End) and character-driven literary fiction in general. Additionally, I think the theme of dealing with dementia is something more and more readers can identify with as we live longer and become more fragile. I really like the characters in this book, and I believe readers will love them, hate them, and want to read more about them.

AUTHOR BIO – J. LOUISE LARSON

J. Louise Larson is a Texas-based writer and the editor of a weekly newspaper in Texas. Her first nonfiction book, The FabJob Guide to Become a Party Planner (co-authored with Jenn James and Craig Coolihan) was published in 2006 by FabJob Publishing. She has contributed to magazines and newspapers, including The Dallas Morning News, Entrepreneur Magazine, AirTran's Go Magazine, Smart Business Magazine, Midwest Airlines' MyMidwest Magazine, DS News, Pasadena Magazine, and others. She has successfully started a small magazine group and a weekly newspaper. She is a member of The Author's Guild and the Writers League of Texas.

In 2000, she was awarded the highest journalism award in the state of Texas for feature series writing, the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors award, first place. In 2002, she won a silver award from the Parenting Publications of America. 'At High Tide' is her first novel. It incorporate the two very different places she has spent the majority of her life: Vancouver Island, British Columbia and Texas.

She can be reached at jackielarsonwrites (at) gmail (dot) com.