Emma White

Get right into it.

My debut novel, Venom Lake, is a multi-POV psychological thriller complete at 75,000 words.

Venom Lake features a toxic friend group reminiscent of May Cobb's The Hunting Wives and contains a true crime podcast element similar to Lisa Jewell's None of This is True.

On a retreat for her true crime book club, Marta and her girlfriends are the only people on Snakebite Island.

But what was supposed to be a fun weekend of getting trashed on Rosé and talking serial killers takes a dark turn when Marta finds one of the women dead on the shore, murdered by one of her supposed friends.

Under the surface, there's turbulence in the group.

Blackmail, affairs and addiction, financial misconduct, a missing husband.

Everyone is hiding dangerous secrets, but how far are they willing to go to keep them?

The murder creates a dilemma for the three surviving book club members, report the death and have their own lives shredded by an investigation, or use their true crime knowledge to stage their friend's disappearance on the lake.

Under duress and against her better judgment, Marta agrees to help conceal the crime.

But she comes to regret her decision as the effects of the cover-up ripple outwards, creating new risks and threatening to unravel their net of lies.

That's the pitch.

So I had a really successful and was very lucky at Pitchfest.

I did get six full requests, three partial requests, and then three requests for

letter in 10 pages.

So that was really encouraging.

And then ultimately, it was kind of a nice story because I'd gone all the way to New York.

I'm from Toronto.

I live in Toronto.

And the Pitchfest had actually lots of agents there in person.