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Senior-level beta readers

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newshirt

Almost competint
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I am preparing my manuscript for submission, and would like one or two senior-level readers to edit/comment on it. I will be happy to reciprocate the offer. Ten readers have already gone through it, so its not complete dreck. PM me for email exchange!

Here's a blurb:

Based on a true story, Jeremiah Clark turns from $2 a week field hand to Victorian millionaire practically overnight. But his wealth and position are disrupted by Molly Maguire-style violence in a contest for control of the booming gold camp.

When Clark flees the poverty-stricken South for the gold fields of Cripple Creek, he lands in camp with a grubstake of $128. Will it last six months, time enough to get established? Not likely. But motivated by aspirations to shed his impoverished past, and aided by a series of lucky gold strikes, he rises from plow hand to Gold Coin Club member. He is among powerful friends at the top of high-society. But success is short-lived, when union bosses engage in political insurrection and violence, touching off a labor war involving the Colorado militia and citizen mobs. Men are beaten and killed, union picketmen are detained and deported, and the mayhem edges Clark’s operation close to financial collapse – nearly enough to undo any gains he’s made. In an attempt to control the violence, he and other mine owners engage the backing of the state of Colorado, including the state militia. But the ugly results of anarchy and military despotism bring the once-rich region into deep depression. Within eighteen months of his millionaire status, Clark can no longer maintain profitable production levels, and slides into ruin with two hundred families depending upon him. His crushing losses are complete. Three steamer trunks hold his last remaining possessions, and he takes the only work available, a slag worker in the mine he built with his own hands. It was true greatness, if only for a season.

--ray
 
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