That’s right, it’s a guest post! Because I don’t actually know everything, I’m excited to share from-the-trenches pieces by authors and publishing professionals. This eye-opening one is from Lindsey J. Palmer, whose emotionally layered novel, SALT SISTERS, hits shelves tomorrow. Enjoy!
I live on Cape Cod, and one of my favorite summer pastimes is strolling the beach to check out what people are reading. You won’t be surprised to hear that lately it’s been a lot of ACOTAR, Fourth Wing, and Freida McFadden. Not my preferred fare, though no shade to romantasy and thrillers.
I’m always happy to see heads in books instead of phones, and everyone should read what they like! I’ve enjoyed the occasional thriller—I devoured Ashley Audrain’s The Push in one frenzied sitting, and (ahem) Andi’s We Were Never Here is a master class in plot. But I’m generally not a genre fiction girl. Give me contemporary characters with relatable problems in a recognizable setting, and I’m in.
That’s the kind of stories I write too, and honestly, it’s been a little hard out here for us realistic fiction fans. We’re out of step with a reading public that craves dragons and fairies, murder and psychopaths. I’ve felt that tension in my own career.
As of a couple years ago, I’d published four novels, with varying levels of success, and when it came time to pitch my new one, I was cautiously optimistic. I knew Salt Sisters was the best thing I’d written: the story of feuding twins who reunite on Cape Cod to confront a painful past, as one mourns a daughter and the other prepares to give birth. But I also knew, like any midlist author, that a track record is no guarantee your next book will sell.
The first round of submissions came back with a familiar brand of rejections. “Such a beautiful story, with richly drawn characters and a distinct setting, but…” The “buts” followed a pattern: not a strong enough hook, lacking high stakes, a little quiet.
Not to sound defensive, but the story didn’t feel quiet to me. There’s death, and knock-down, drag-out screaming fights, and even a sort-of kidnapping. But I guess that couldn’t compete with the drama of dragon riders and dangerous fae courts.
So, what to do? I took out my editing pen and got to work. To speed up the pace, I cut 15,000 words—anything extraneous was out. Then a friend in my writers’ group suggested: What about adding a prologue?
Prologues sometimes get a bad rap. They can read like backstory dumps, or manufacture false stakes that fizzle once the real story begins. But in this case, I felt it made sense. I wanted to signal that this wasn’t some quiet tale of sisters having conversations on walks down the beach—there were real stakes and real drama (even without mythical creatures).
The prologue begins, “Jocelyn didn’t kidnap her sister’s baby, although later, people would say that she had” (read the rest below). I kept it tight—just 300 words that drop the reader into the heart of the climax. Chapter One rewinds: We meet Jocelyn working an open house, dreading her sister’s baby shower later that day. It takes 200 pages to circle back and understand how she unravels to the point alluded to in the prologue. What started off as a strategy to try to hook editors ended up giving the whole novel a stronger pulse.
When my agent sent out the revised manuscript, we found success! I signed with my dream editor, Emily Freidenrich at Lake Union, who deeply understood and believed in the story. The experience reinforced something I’ve learned again and again while writing: Each book is its own unique animal, but everything comes together in revisions.
Salt Sisters prologue:
Jocelyn didn’t kidnap her sister’s baby, although later, people would say that she had. It was her own foot pressing the gas, her own two hands on the steering wheel, no matter that it didn’t feel that way. There was the lighthouse, wide swaths of red and white flashing through the fog, growing larger and larger until it was right in front of her. The car swerved around the turn and followed the lip of the land by the sea. The road was abandoned at this time of night. The sliver of moon looked lonely through the mist.
In the rearview mirror, Jocelyn saw that Rose was asleep in the car seat, strapped in and secure. She counted the girl’s breaths, shallow and even. She studied her pink cheeks, her button nose, her rosebud mouth. She was a beautiful baby. And she looked so peaceful now that she was safe, here, with Jocelyn.
A peek of beach came into view over the dune. The whoosh of waves sounded gentle—harmless, even—but the ocean was a dark void, swallowed by the night. Jocelyn shuddered at the sight of it.
Again, voice raw, she started up the song about the blackbird and broken wings and learning to fly. How long had she been singing to soothe her niece—an hour, maybe two? It was hard to say.
No one knew where they were. Everyone was probably out searching, panicking, their imaginations running wild about what Jocelyn was capable of. She pictured her sister’s face twisted up in anguish as she called out her daughter’s name, in vain. Well, good. This was all Maddy’s fault. She’d driven her to this.
Jocelyn felt a twinge in her belly, then glanced to the back seat for reassurance: There was the baby, okay, here, with her, fine.
Lindsey will send a signed copy of Salt Sisters to one lucky subscriber. (Contest open to those residing in the lower 48 states; enter by 11:59pm ET on Friday, July 17.)
Against the stunning backdrop of Cape Cod, two sisters reunite and confront their painful past in a powerful novel about family expectations and life’s unforeseen turns.
Twin sisters Jocelyn and Maddy Marx grew up in a tight-knit family on Cape Cod, but they couldn’t be more different. Jocelyn, laid-back and dreamy, still lives in their hometown as a Realtor. Maddy, intense and ambitious, left for New York after college and never looked back. Until the summer they turn thirty-one.
After a dramatic fall from grace in her career, a pregnant Maddy returns to the Cape with her husband and announces she’s back for good. For Jocelyn, it’s less a reconciliation than a reminder of a life that was ripped away from her and the deep grief she’s carried ever since. Back in each other’s orbit, the sisters reopen old wounds and are forced to confront what it will take to heal.
Salt Sisters is a moving exploration of sisterhood and motherhood, and the courage it takes to face the past, forgive, and finally let go.
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