Upmarket Women’s Historical Fiction | Complete at 104,000 words
By Kim McCollum
Story Statement
Ties bound too tight can be lethal.
Karma...or something more sinister? A Mommy and Me reunion at a haunted, holistic, hot springs retreat in Montana turns deadly when a ghost incites others to exact revenge for her unsolved murder over 100 years ago.
Antagonist
Max is irresistible. Or at least he believes he is. His springy hair, lean, muscular physique, and casual smile entice women easier than the shiniest of fishing lures. But his ego cannot handle rejection. More than once, the womanizing yoga instructor and hiking guide at the retreat has gotten physical with women who dare to reject him. As a seasonal worker, Max jumps from place to place before his predatorial ways become obvious enough to land him in trouble. Growing up in foster care taught him the pain of forming attachments, so he is sure to move on before any true feelings are involved, at least on his part. He feels no remorse for the pain, both physical and emotional, he causes the women who dare to enter his trap. To him, women are just conquests, notches on his bedpost, to be used and abused to stroke his inexhaustible ego.
Breakout Title
MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT
YELLOWSTONE HOT SPRINGS RETREAT
THE GHOST’S REVENGE
Comps
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
A tale of women behaving badly which ends in murder involving unlikely friendships, messy lies, and juicy secrets which are all also found in MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT.
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
Set at a holistic retreat and told from multiple POVs just like MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT. They are also similar in tone and the transformation of the characters through their experience at the retreat.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
The complexity of relationships especially between friends and mothers and their children is explored in this novel as well in MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
This novel explores the contrasting needs of independency versus human connection and the balance of survival and violence. These themes are also central to MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT.
Hook Line (logline)
A Mommy and Me reunion at a haunted, holistic, hot springs retreat in Montana turns deadly when a ghost incites others to exact revenge for her unsolved murder over 100 years ago.
Inner Conflict
Maude
Maude believes she is content to live out the rest of her days in the shadow of the majestic mountains surrounding the retreat with only the company of her dog and the ghost. But when a group of friends arrive at the retreat for a Mommy and Me reunion now that their babies are heading to college, Maude can’t help but be drawn in by their infectious friendship. Maude is further pulled into their circle when one of the women, Brooke, reminds Maude of her daughter who passed away at age twenty of a drug overdose. She senses the ghost getting stronger through flickering lights, fluttering pages, and even a scrawled "M" on an order pad and realizes she might have to help release her tether to this world so she can move on even though it means losing her best friend. Ultimately, she recognizes that the ghost cannot stay stuck forever and her real-life friendship with these four ladies will allow her to avoid dying alone.
Simone
The ghost knows she is stuck because she seeks revenge for her unsolved murder at the retreat by a wealthy copper baron but does not know how to release this tether. When the four women arrive, their connection energizes her. Brooke’s involvement with the predatorial yoga instructor seems the perfect means to exact some form of revenge for her own murder. When Maude becomes involved with these ladies, Simone decides to tell her story as a means of increasing her energy. Only the reader “hears” her story, but the characters sense her more and more through chills in the air, flickering lights, visions, tapping on windows, and those sort of communication techniques. Maude, as an unreliable narrator, believes that the ghost actually carried out the murder and knows she has moved on.
Brooke
When Brooke’s fairytale wedding to her second husband is postponed due to her future mother-in-law’s sudden death, she enlists her friends of nearly two decades to join her at a haunted, holistic, hot springs retreat in Montana for some contraband booze and lazy soaks in the hot springs. Bossy, assertive, and tons of fun, she is lured in by the handsome hiking guide and yoga instructor and after a raucous night of drinking and dancing, she ends up having an affair that she immediately regrets. She realizes the affair is really a symptom of deeper issues with her current relationship and ends up calling her wedding off.
Tracy
Tracy credits her Mommy and Me group with saving her sanity as a new mother in Las Vegas eighteen years ago. The problem is that she has carried a secret for the entirety of their friendship that she knows would turn them all against her. A much poo pooed weight loss hypnosis class taught by the hippie new owner at the retreat is the catalyst for telling this secret. Her secret, which, until this moment, was not known by anyone, not her husband, her son, or even her mother, is that her son is not her husband’s. He is the product of a few-month-long relationship with one of the other mothers in the Mommy and Me group’s husband. This fling happened before she knew the other mother but she knew who her husband was at their first meeting when she saw a family picture in the living room and said nothing. Ultimately, she is forgiven and the bond of their friendship is even stronger.
Setting
The setting for this novel is based on a real hot springs resort called the Bolder Hot Springs Resort near Helena, Montana. It is believed to be haunted by the ghost, named Simone, who was murdered at the resort over 100 years ago. At one time, the resort was one of the grandest in the west and was host to Presidents, movie stars, and the wealthiest people in the nation. Presently, from the road, the resort still looks majestic, romantic; a retreat lost in time. Up close, however, the complex is nothing more than three architecturally incompatible hulking mounds of concrete pushed up against each other in the manner of a child’s gingerbread house. The largest of the buildings is a Spanish style of some sort with red dome over the highest point that resembles a pith helmet. Collapsed curtain rods cross the windows, their bunched fabric puddling in the windowsill. At least twenty high-backed, wooden rocking chairs sat empty, strewn haphazardly across the wrap-around deck, looking anything but inviting.
The characters go hiking in the mountains behind the retreat and are chased by a moose, they soak in the healing waters of the mineral pools, they gawk in the windows of the abandoned portions of the buildings and are alternately thrilled and frightened by the ghost’s antics.
New York Pitch Assignments - March 2022
in New York Write to Pitch 2023 and 2024
Posted
MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT
Upmarket Women’s Historical Fiction | Complete at 104,000 words
By Kim McCollum
Story Statement
Ties bound too tight can be lethal.
Karma...or something more sinister? A Mommy and Me reunion at a haunted, holistic, hot springs retreat in Montana turns deadly when a ghost incites others to exact revenge for her unsolved murder over 100 years ago.
Antagonist
Max is irresistible. Or at least he believes he is. His springy hair, lean, muscular physique, and casual smile entice women easier than the shiniest of fishing lures. But his ego cannot handle rejection. More than once, the womanizing yoga instructor and hiking guide at the retreat has gotten physical with women who dare to reject him. As a seasonal worker, Max jumps from place to place before his predatorial ways become obvious enough to land him in trouble. Growing up in foster care taught him the pain of forming attachments, so he is sure to move on before any true feelings are involved, at least on his part. He feels no remorse for the pain, both physical and emotional, he causes the women who dare to enter his trap. To him, women are just conquests, notches on his bedpost, to be used and abused to stroke his inexhaustible ego.
Breakout Title
MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT
YELLOWSTONE HOT SPRINGS RETREAT
THE GHOST’S REVENGE
Comps
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
A tale of women behaving badly which ends in murder involving unlikely friendships, messy lies, and juicy secrets which are all also found in MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT.
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
Set at a holistic retreat and told from multiple POVs just like MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT. They are also similar in tone and the transformation of the characters through their experience at the retreat.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
The complexity of relationships especially between friends and mothers and their children is explored in this novel as well in MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
This novel explores the contrasting needs of independency versus human connection and the balance of survival and violence. These themes are also central to MONTANA HOT SPRINGS RETREAT.
Hook Line (logline)
A Mommy and Me reunion at a haunted, holistic, hot springs retreat in Montana turns deadly when a ghost incites others to exact revenge for her unsolved murder over 100 years ago.
Inner Conflict
Maude
Maude believes she is content to live out the rest of her days in the shadow of the majestic mountains surrounding the retreat with only the company of her dog and the ghost. But when a group of friends arrive at the retreat for a Mommy and Me reunion now that their babies are heading to college, Maude can’t help but be drawn in by their infectious friendship. Maude is further pulled into their circle when one of the women, Brooke, reminds Maude of her daughter who passed away at age twenty of a drug overdose. She senses the ghost getting stronger through flickering lights, fluttering pages, and even a scrawled "M" on an order pad and realizes she might have to help release her tether to this world so she can move on even though it means losing her best friend. Ultimately, she recognizes that the ghost cannot stay stuck forever and her real-life friendship with these four ladies will allow her to avoid dying alone.
Simone
The ghost knows she is stuck because she seeks revenge for her unsolved murder at the retreat by a wealthy copper baron but does not know how to release this tether. When the four women arrive, their connection energizes her. Brooke’s involvement with the predatorial yoga instructor seems the perfect means to exact some form of revenge for her own murder. When Maude becomes involved with these ladies, Simone decides to tell her story as a means of increasing her energy. Only the reader “hears” her story, but the characters sense her more and more through chills in the air, flickering lights, visions, tapping on windows, and those sort of communication techniques. Maude, as an unreliable narrator, believes that the ghost actually carried out the murder and knows she has moved on.
Brooke
When Brooke’s fairytale wedding to her second husband is postponed due to her future mother-in-law’s sudden death, she enlists her friends of nearly two decades to join her at a haunted, holistic, hot springs retreat in Montana for some contraband booze and lazy soaks in the hot springs. Bossy, assertive, and tons of fun, she is lured in by the handsome hiking guide and yoga instructor and after a raucous night of drinking and dancing, she ends up having an affair that she immediately regrets. She realizes the affair is really a symptom of deeper issues with her current relationship and ends up calling her wedding off.
Tracy
Tracy credits her Mommy and Me group with saving her sanity as a new mother in Las Vegas eighteen years ago. The problem is that she has carried a secret for the entirety of their friendship that she knows would turn them all against her. A much poo pooed weight loss hypnosis class taught by the hippie new owner at the retreat is the catalyst for telling this secret. Her secret, which, until this moment, was not known by anyone, not her husband, her son, or even her mother, is that her son is not her husband’s. He is the product of a few-month-long relationship with one of the other mothers in the Mommy and Me group’s husband. This fling happened before she knew the other mother but she knew who her husband was at their first meeting when she saw a family picture in the living room and said nothing. Ultimately, she is forgiven and the bond of their friendship is even stronger.
Setting
The setting for this novel is based on a real hot springs resort called the Bolder Hot Springs Resort near Helena, Montana. It is believed to be haunted by the ghost, named Simone, who was murdered at the resort over 100 years ago. At one time, the resort was one of the grandest in the west and was host to Presidents, movie stars, and the wealthiest people in the nation. Presently, from the road, the resort still looks majestic, romantic; a retreat lost in time. Up close, however, the complex is nothing more than three architecturally incompatible hulking mounds of concrete pushed up against each other in the manner of a child’s gingerbread house. The largest of the buildings is a Spanish style of some sort with red dome over the highest point that resembles a pith helmet. Collapsed curtain rods cross the windows, their bunched fabric puddling in the windowsill. At least twenty high-backed, wooden rocking chairs sat empty, strewn haphazardly across the wrap-around deck, looking anything but inviting.
The characters go hiking in the mountains behind the retreat and are chased by a moose, they soak in the healing waters of the mineral pools, they gawk in the windows of the abandoned portions of the buildings and are alternately thrilled and frightened by the ghost’s antics.