One Act of Defiance by Rachel Malcolm

One Act of Defiance merges detailed medical and birth scenes with commercial, high-action—Call the Midwife meets Divergent—a 55,000 word YA novel about a young midwife of the future who risks her life on a quest for freedom. Mark Spencer, award-winning author of A Haunted Love Story, said my writing is “Compelling, vivid, and fast-paced.”

After her mother is executed for treason, seventeen-year-old Naya, must take over as midwife. When she is asked not to implant a baby with a potentially life-threatening tracer, Naya chooses compassion over obedience to the ruthless government—the same crime that got her mother shot. As a deo, Naya must spend three days a week in military training games. Naya excels in the training and secretly loves her instructor, Jairan. But she uncovers the disturbing truth that their “games” are actually remote drone attacks in the Continent’s plot to take over the world. Naya’s knowledge makes her an enemy of the Continent, and it is Jairan’s job to hunt Naya down and kill her. Naya joins with the rebels and discovers that their leader is her father—long thought dead. They must expose the Continent’s plot and stop them, or their people will never be free.

I’m passionate about birth and work as a birth doula when I’m not homeschooling my six wild and wonderful children. I anticipate the promotional support of the birth community of midwives and doulas of North America. One Act of Defiance has series potential.  

The Book Doctors: We love the idea of a midwife from the future as the heroine of a book.  When we had our child, we had a doula and a midwife, and honestly, we don’t know what we would’ve done without them.  We love that you establish your credentials as the mother of six, and as someone who has actually brought life into the world.  Respect.  We really enjoy the idea of the guy that our heroine has a secret love for is the one who is sent out to kill her.  We would like to know if he shares her feelings.  We do make a serious emotional connection with young Naya.  She seems like such a worthy person, taking over for her murdered mother, choosing compassion over obeying an evil government.  We find ourselves rooting for her.  And that’s huge in this kind of book.  Heck, in any kind of book where there’s a plot and characters.  And it’s great when she uncovers the fact that the training exercises she and her compadres are participating in our actually remote drone attacks.  Again, the fact that she joins the rebels and wants to fight against evil in this very specific way makes us love Naya, and turns us into cheerleaders for her.  The long-lost dead father is a nice touch.  But we don’t quite get enough word pictures of this world that you are creating for us.  How is it different from the world we live in?  We need to have a few more pieces of action where we see Naya helping a woman who’s in trouble give birth, fighting against the evil government, going face-to-face with her love interest, reuniting with her father. And these must escalate us towards a wild climax.  Again, you don’t want to give away the ending, you want to leave us cliff-hanging. But we don’t get enough of the plot as it plays out in your story.  Wonderful main character, a midwife from the future, something we haven’t seen yet in the 20,000 pitches we’ve read or heard. Lots of cool details, just need to see more clearly what this world is, and how the action is going to unfold.

Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be awarded the “Fan Favorite,” and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).