Gemotions

The email sat in Eleanor’s inbox, a stark white rectangle against the gentle gradient of her desktop wallpaper. It was from a literary agent. The subject line: “Regarding Your Manuscript.” Eleanor felt a prickle of discomfort in her chest, the familiar tightening that usually preceded a rejection. She’d spent years honing her craft, agonizing over every sentence.

She scrolled through the agent’s message, expecting the usual polite dismissal. But the words that followed stole her breath. “Remarkably similar,” the agent wrote, “to passages found in the recently published novel by Elias Thorne.” The agent suggested plagiarism, and a link to Thorne’s book followed.

Her hands shook as she clicked the link. The opening paragraph, a description of a windswept coastline, looked familiar. Too familiar. It was her coastline, her prose. A knot twisted in her stomach, and she wanted to hide.