A little bit about Elaine...
Elaine Palladino is a Cuban-American Miami native and graduate of Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. She has been an athlete, a teacher, a photographer, avid reader, and always a writer. While running a successful wedding and portrait photography business and raising her kids, Elaine fulfilled a lifelong dream of writing her first novel. She lives in Miami with her family.
Currently Querying...
The Last Ones
71,000 words // Coming of Age Fiction
For years, college freshman Megan Lynch has mined for stories in her close-knit Miami neighborhood complete with meddling viejitas and flock of roosters. During a class-time nap Meg is struck with the idea to make her own personal documentary film collecting these stories. With her natural abilities to get people to open up, Meg sets out to find "last ones”:
The last surviving sibling.
The last person at the ballpark.
The last bodega open at night.
None of her subjects, however, are quite as fascinating (or frustrating) as her two best friends, Andy and Daniella, who seem like the last ones to figure out that they are meant for each other.
Reunited back home in Miami for winter break after their first college semester away, the three friends go in search for a “last one” at the beach only to face the unimaginable. Left reeling, Andy and Dani journey back to New York to finish Meg’s documentary themselves.
Set during the dreamy middle place between Christmas Eve and Three Kings Day, Andy and Dani follow the blueprint that Meg left behind. From the halls of the MET, to the corner bodega and places in between, with the help of Meg’s “last ones,” (and is that a ghostly voice?) the two friends learn to face their grief, their romance, and their uncertain futures.