The Librarian's Billionaire Brothel

Horizontal Pitch Fiction

Welcome back to Stock Fiction, the internet hidey-hole where I stash my best short fiction, poetry, essays and podcasts, and occasionally hone my frustration with the publishing industry into stylized snark bombs parody for your entertainment.

Today’s post falls into the snark bomb parody category, though it pains me to say, the reality that triggered the madness herein is a satirist’s worst nightmare.

Fruit that hangs so low, it can pretty much pluck itself.

The following book pitches (and exquisite cover designs!) are my response to Wattpad’s recent call for new “verticals.” I hope you enjoy them as much as the lizard brained masses inevitably would.

⛳Fore Play - Hot Encounter

When a sinister plot to weaken the shafts of her competitors before the annual co-ed golf thingy at the local rich people’s club lands desperate divorcee Lyza Underman deep in the rough with two strokes against her, she must close the gap between herself and handsy club pro Rod Lancing, lest her dream of becoming the club’s first female ball-shagger be shattered.

Her only chance at victory will be to cheat her way into a coveted threesome with Rod and his flop shot ex-wife Muffy, whose after-hours clubhouse scrambles may have led to their marriage taking a mulligan.

With the help of loose-lipped caddie Johnny Bunkermaker, Lyza learns that Rod’s recent shanking episodes have nothing to do with her attempted sabotage or his wife’s polyamorous indiscretions.

But before Lyza can confront the long-suffering pro with a hole-in-one proposition that could improve his short game, Muffy drops dead on the 9th hole fairway.

Can Rod and Lyza come together? To solve the murder? And more importantly, will Johnny be their third on the back nine?    

🥩W I L F - Werewolf / Para-romantasy

Crepuscular defense lawyer, Dominic Fangorn, Esq., has no time for interdimensional romance. That is until he falls under the spell of Elven priestess and paralegal Elke Slake, an ambitious upstart with a heart of Methrelian crystal.

When Elke spurns Dominic’s inter-office advances, stating she doesn’t sniff butts with co-workers, except during the Vernal Equinox, and ONLY if they’re purebred and of the line of Canis Extraphalus, Dominic retreats to his lair to lick his wounds.

In a moment of hibernation-induced delirium, Dominic envisions a wood sprite named Twittle who grants him a gift certificate to a waxing salon and a magic prism forged in the titanium mines of Malus.

From this device, Dominic is able to deepfake his lineage and send airbrushed photos of freshly shorn meat to his beloved.

Will his sophomoric determinations succeed in ensnaring the elusive heart and disinterested loins of the prudish priestess Elke?

Or will Dominic’s next full moon land him in the doghouse?

📕The Librarian’s Billionaire Brothel - Dangerous Love

There’s nothing more socially devastating to a gen Z party girl than federally mandated nights and weekends at the public library.

But if ex-mafia princess Vivica Bratz can’t keep her head down in witness protection, she may not live to testify against her crime boss father, Broderich Bratz III, accused of bludgeoning to death billionaire tech bro Shane Duchene, founder of FleX, the social media site for gym bros responsible for a terrifying endemic of on camera weightroom injuries.

During a late-night catwalk through the bound periodicals, Vivica stumbles upon an underground hostel inhabited by five inexplicably hot, clean-shaven, twenty-something, billionaire business tycoons with acute nymphomania-induced agoraphobia.

Being an Empath™ and a burgeoning bookfluencer, Vivica decides to bring these wayward hunks under her wing and out of their shells by teaching them the ins and outs of writing serialized erotica for her new publishing platform LitMax.

Everything is humming along smoothly until the porn book site’s user database is leaked to the mob by a mole in their midst.

With only days to go before her father’s murder trial, Vivica will have to shed her librarian livery, don her detective dicky, and start reading between the lines if she hopes to finger the informant before her cover is blown.

Thank you for indulging me this little outrage against the machine. I mentioned low hanging fruit. If you think my interpretations of Wattpad’s '“hot list” genres unfair, allow me to share the Instagram post that ALMOST made this humor project NOT fun for me anymore.

Almost. 😏

If you can’t beat ‘em … roast ‘em. Amirite?

ICYMI

My buddy

Michael Estrin

and I talked about Wattpad, among other interesting writerly stuffs, in the latest episode of Talk Fiction. Listen while you do laundry or yard work.

IRL

My kids kicked ass at back-to-school. Even my son, who had to start 6th grade at a brand-new school with a brand-new set of braces, has performed admirably. And because the universe likes to remind us that we are powerless to its whims, we all just got slammed with a nasty bout of Covid. I’m the last in line and on the mend, but it definitely threw a wrench in our excellence (and my husband’s perfect teacher attendance) streak.

On the horizon …

My two-year Substackiversary is fast approaching. If you weren’t here for my first anniversary celebration, it’s worth a watch. 💜

Leave it to me to set the bar so high for myself. Here’s hoping I can come up with something equally impressive to mark Year Two.

A special thank you (and welcome) to all my new subscribers. I shall do my very best to keep you entertained. And an extra special thank you to my earliest subscribers, still reading and supporting my work. Your loyalty means the world to me.

Until next time, friends.

Stay vertical.

And don’t get Covid.