Working Title: The Sculptor of New Hope

Here’s a quick summary of the series I’m working on called The Sculptor of New Hope. They are my first novel-length works of fiction.

What started as a novel for NaNoWriMo 2012 has mutated into this huge, crazy saga.

I hope to have all three books published within a year or two. Please share your thoughts on them.

Book One (complete, in revision)

Ona’s reckless days of drug abuse are over when she overdoses on a sidewalk on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan. Her family convinces her to recover at her aunt’s bed and breakfast in an idyllic town where she starts a recovery program and acclimates to living in the normally again. Ona gets her bearings and applies for a job as a sculptor’s assistant in the hip neighboring town, New Hope, PA.

Antoni Asarov is the genius known as ‘The Hands of God’ and maintains a moat of antipathy that few can penetrate, but as circumstances force him to work intimately with Ona, they discover they both have been scarred by the world and find solace each other’s company.

Happiness seems a possibility, but as much as Antoni wants Ona, he cannot touch her. The abuse he suffered in the orphanage of his childhood has left him so emotionally broken that he equates sex with hate, but he worships Ona as his muse and creates the masterpiece of his career.

The piece is auctioned for charity and is bought by Sonia Orlyck, a wealthy woman who collects artists as lovers. When she meets Antoni Asarov she decides she must have him and commissions him to create a sculpture of her.

Sonia works to drive a rift between the sculptor and his muse. She plays off the Antoni’s fears and Ona’s insecurities. Caged longings and festering resentment threaten to tear Ona and Antoni’s bond to pieces. The darkest aspects of their neuroses rise to the surface and culminate in the ruin of all.

Book Two (complete, on standby for revision)

After a tragic incident, Ona and Antoni are forced apart by their personal demons and descend into separate hells of their own making, surrounded by a city where death is on every corner as a greedy and vengeful Russian crime boss struggles to devour Manhattan by poisoning its addicted population with a flesh-eating synthetic drug.

Book Three (complete, on standby for revision)

After cheating death in New York, Ona, a painter, and Antoni, a sculptor, find themselves paralyzed creatively. They decide to go on a pilgrimage to forget the trauma and become inspired again, but no matter where their journey takes them, they can’t outrun their personal demons. They learn that their love must be strong enough to surmount their pasts as they try to end the pain once and for all on a remote Caribbean lagoon called The Darklands.

Follow my board for The Sculptor on Pinterest.