From our most recent publication day, Isabella Renee’s I Vote You, Mr Mayor is a romance novel in the style of Casey McQuistion’s critically acclaimed Red, White and Royal Blue.
The synopsis to Isabella’s book reads:
Luke Cameron-McIay is an optimistic but naïve young man eagerly starting out in his journalism career. His parents are big in the political sphere of New York City, and his mother has been Mayor for two terms. He tries forging his own path in his own career but finds himself wrapped up in a constant world of politics - more than he intended - when he meets his parents political rival, Duncan Thatcher. Duncan is an attractive, charming older man who opens Luke's eyes to a part of his identity he has struggled with his whole life.
While he attempts to keep his crisis out of the public's eye, he secretly continues to pursue Duncan behind his parents back. Throughout their illicit affair, it evokes questions: Could their fling derail the entire campaign? How can someone like Luke find the courage to love themselves enough to admit who they truly are? Is love enough to risk everything for?
If that has peaked your interests, for you now, is the opening pages of the book:
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October 17
Dear Future Tenant,
In the dressing room across the hallway from my bedroom, there is an antique, eighteenth century, walnut colored wardrobe, not to be confused with the armoire across from it. Taped to the wooden backing, I have left an envelope with a piece of paper tucked inside of it. If you care enough to open the letter, you will be surprised to find my, Luke Cameron-Maclay’s, suicide note.
You may have questions. Many of which I will not dignify with an answer. What I can do, however, is explain how I got myself into this predicament. The fact of the matter is, I will be long gone before you have the opportunity to ridicule me for my ignominious actions.
You see, I had just graduated at the top of my class from Brown. I was at the peak of the world. My parents were proud, and I was eager to start building my career. I was going to be a journalist, you know.
Spoiler Alert: Didn’t happen.
At least, not in the sense that I wanted it to. I wanted to be a respected writer; like Emily Dickinson or Francis Scott Fitzgerald. I wanted to work for the New York Times or The Post and eventually write an autobiography about how my parents’ political aspirations were nothing more than a burden of forced rightist views that encumbered my childhood. Maybe I’d write a children’s book after that, something to dampen the fire I would have ignited after airing out my family’s dirty laundry. My, how the mighty have fallen. I started on top and was literally fucked to the bottom of a ravine over a few months’ time.
As I opened my eyes after hitting my head on the broken stones that lay at the bottom, all I saw was yellow. Yellow throw pillows, yellow sofa, yellow rug, yellow chairs, yellow house. Our Gracie Mansion was haunting me. I knew I was a lamb led to slaughter the moment I walked through the wrought-iron fence. I could see my parents through the curtain drawn back windows. While I couldn’t hear them, I could see their shared muted screams. Their outraged fingers waving at each other and narrowed brows made it impossible to assume anything else. I was a dead man walking. The feeling was heightened after eye contact was made between my mother and me. A hundred feet away and I could still melt under her boiling stare. Her, inside the house and me, standing on the edge of the property’s entrance. I could make a break for it, or I could face the music.
Future Tenant, I would like you to know that I made the wrong choice. I decided not to run. The letter you read may not be a found suicide note, but a letter they forced me to write for the people who noticed my absence. A letter explaining that I ran off to Europe with the love of my life or to become a nun. It would be false. In reality, I was murdered by my parents and my body was chopped into small pieces and stuffed into the ancient walls of this 1799 mansion. All you need to know is that I now forever reside here as a ghost with unfinished business.
Find Duncan Thatcher, tell him it’s his fault.
Forever haunted,
Luke