Second attempt (first post was removed for going over the sample word count). I had only received one comment before it was taken down, but I have taken on board the points that were made.
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I am seeking representation for HORACE, a historical fiction novel, complete at 110K words.
HORACE is a coming-of-age novel set in Regency England, combining the immersive historical breadth of The Blackbirds of St Giles, the consciously 19th-century narrative voice of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and the life-spanning bildungsroman arc of The Goldfinch.
Born in Regency England, on the rural outskirts of the vibrant town of Goldbury, Horace, a boy of seven years, has known only hardship and toil. Yet he retains a gentleness of spirit, and a yearning for a better life, which leads to his being aided by the tender-hearted Lady Wilkins, and her affluent family.
Horace is thus introduced to a new world—of gentility and enlightenment—and acquires a hunger for the riches of an education, as well as a hopeless longing for the affection of the lively and beautiful Miss Henrietta Wilkins.
The novel follows the plight of Horace through his childhood, where, through the patronage of the Wilkins family, he becomes a servant at Goldbury’s Grand Hotel, the colourful home of affluent guests and lowly servants alike.
Horace must navigate the complex worlds of both classes: acquiring friends and enemies; unraveling a sinister plot that threatens the hotel and its inhabitants; and pursuing his own ambitions for success, and love.
When the hotel is set ablaze in a suspicious fire, Horace’s life undergoes another dramatic upheaval. He is cast down, opium-addicted and consigned to the slums of London, until a former kindness is repaid, and he is taken into the care of Minister Ellingham, and set upon a path to the English Parliament, and the apotheosis of his ambitions.
But the villainous efforts of a hidden foe threaten all that Horace has built; his life, and his love, hang in the balance. He must play the detective, and the lawyer, if he is to conquer an enemy that has, for years, quietly bedevilled him from the shadows.
I am a PhD candidate at [school], and, while I enjoy academic writing, my first (and greatest) love is writing fiction!
First 300 words
Horace Hobart, a boy of seven years, was upon the scent of a piece of news that had quite intrigued him.
As yet, he had only managed to catch a little of it, in the faint wafts of speech that drifted through the open window of his neighbour’s house—but what he had heard, greatly excited his curiosity. Apparently some new family, of considerable consequence, had just taken up residence at Penwick Park—the grand estate at the edge of his small village of Clay End.
Horace had not been able to make out what manner of people these newcomers were supposed to be—though it was evident, from the animated manner in which his neighbour Mrs Plumley was speaking, that she had strong feelings about them—but whether good or bad, Horace had not yet been able to ascertain.
The reader should not think ill of Horace for his impertinence in eavesdropping. Desperate circumstances (which shall soon be related) had driven him to his favoured hiding place, beneath the hedgerow that bordered this neighbour’s property—and here, as he sat in quiet distress, the words he overheard made him forget his present grief, along with any scruples he would naturally feel in listening to words not meant for his ears.
“Indeed, I’m quite sure,” Mrs Plumley was saying, "the gentleman, I’m told, is perhaps five-and-thirty—and, if this intelligence is to be credited, a Baronet, no less.”
(A muffled voice replied, but Horace could make out not a word).
“Just so," resumed Mrs Plumley, "she thought him a most ill-natured sort of a gentleman—and the children, too--both magnificently proud and pompous.”
Presently, Horace’s attention was wrenched from this fascinating (if incomplete) dialogue, by the awful sound of a man’s bellowing somewhere nearby,
“Boy!”—his father’s voice—“Mind ye show yerself a‘fore I come a’lookin for ye!”