Early this morning, I emailed the formal proposal for my new book to New York. It was sixteen pages of single-spaced description, starting with a single painstakingly-written sentence. That first sentence has to hook my editor or she’ll never read the rest. I mean, you guys read the first page or two of a book before buying. If you don’t like what’s right there at the beginning, you pass on the whole thing. Right? Well, pitching a book isn’t all that different.

Here’s the sentence I sent:

A woman has a secret that may save the life of her best friend’s husband – or destroy him.