First agent contacted...

Aevitas Creative Management. Sent off a query by the form on their website. Filled it in with my info. Query letter. Short synopsis...which I did not have and for some stupid reason had not thought of. So worked one up right then. As follows --

Brendan Kinsella is a lad who just wants to live his life, but being born and raised in Derry, Northern Ireland, means history will interfere with his plans. Beginning in 1966 when he is but ten years of age, Brendan fights to maintain his own path through the turmoil of the time, from the vicious murder of his father to being caught in the middle of an IRA bombing to a growing relationship with a Protestant girl that must be kept secret for fear of reprisals...from both sides. But with chaos exploding around him, Brendan begins to wonder if his hopes and dreams and prayers and promises will ever find a place of safety.

Not great but workable. I also included the first chapter...which I edited a bit as I was going through it, again, and found a fucking typo! I'll be editing till the damn thing's published. They give no indication as to when they'll get back to me, but I figure 6-8 weeks is acceptable, especially during a holiday period.

Then I dug in and reworked chapter 2...and started thinking I'm letting Brendan chat around too much. He sort of scoots back and forth in time for events, though not massively so. He introduces his brothers and sisters and talks a bit about his mother's and father's history, showing he knows little about it. And he reveals it's suspected Kinsella is not his father's real last name. However, all the children are in the registry of birth as Kinsella so it definitely is his.

This is the kind of house they live in, albeit near collapse. These were built throughout the UK in the 18th and 19th centuries as quick, cheap easy dwellings for factory workers and their families. It's not like the terrace house we lived in when I was a child, in Ruislip Gardens west of London. (Next to the last stop on the Central Tube Line; my stepfather being stationed at Ruislip AFB, not far away.)

In ours, the stairs were against the wall directly in front of the door, with the parlor to the left, a dining area and a hall back to the kitchen. Upstairs were 2 bedrooms and the bath. It wasn't a big place, but mom didn't have my youngest brother until we were back in the States so only had to deal with two kids, at first; my sister was born, over there about a year before our return.

I packed up a library of books on humor in Reading a few years ago in a house similar to it, just everything on the opposite side. It was somewhat disconcerting...but I did the majority of my work in a shed in the back while my associate ferried books into me and boxes into the parlor, for staging, so it wasn't a big deal.

The house I lived in is still standing. If I do get back to London, I may stop by and ask if I can come inside, just to see it, again.