The Secret Cellar- First Draft Complete

concept cover for The Secret Cellar

Here's the introduction, followed by the chapter titles for the childrens' mystery, The Secret Cellar. It turned into 22 chapters instead of 20, and a total of about 12,500 words. It's a little longer than my target length, but I'll let my test readers tell me if it's too long.

The picture is a very rough concept sketch for the cover of this first book in the series.

CORA INTRODUCES HERSELF

My name is Cora Caulfield, and I'm an older lady now. But when I was a child, my last name was Dubois. That's French, pronounced dew-BWAH. I lived on the east side of the Thorpe River in Forest County, near where the Thorpe flows into the Petit Sable River. The year I turned nine, in early 1953, Jimmie Mosher moved into the house his grandfather had built on the west side of the Thorpe.

We became friends immediately. He was in the same grade at school, we rode the same bus, and we liked to do a lot of the same things. Things like exploring and trying new activities—if there was a puzzle to be solved, we were an unbeatable team. Friends who lived nearby sometimes joined our adventures.

I've been looking back on those years, and writing down our stories of the many mysterious happenings so they won't be forgotten. I hope you'll enjoy them.

Our first big success at solving a mystery was just after school let out for the summer that year. Jimmie's family had a big problem!

1. JIMMIE AND LASZLO
2. A NARROW ESCAPE
3. THE TENANT FARM
4. HAZEL'S TEARS
5. GRANNY MAY'S SONG
6. JIMMIE AND CORA
7. BASEMENT OR CELLAR
8. CRAWLSPACE
9. A BURIED TREASURE?
10. CORA'S DILEMMA
11. GEORGE AND RUBY
12. MARGIT'S PRESENTS
13. KING OF THE HILL
14. THE SECOND CELLAR
15. DISCOURAGED AND PURPLE
16. FORTY-THREE CENTS
17. THE ACCIDENT
18. THE SECRET CELLAR
19. THE HIDEOUT
20. LIGHT AND SHADOW
21. SOMETIMES SMALLER IS BETTER
22. SAVING THE FARM