Title Decided, Assassin Pitch, and LIRW Luncheon

So I picked a title -- I'm going with Hidden in Shadows. And the sequel that I have the skeleton of a plot figured out? That one will be Assassination of Love. :)

Now that the title is decided, I've been tweaking the pitch. I think I had too much information before so here's my latest try:

Lorna McCloud pretends she's an assassin for the money and because she's good at it. The real reason — she was traumatized after witnessing her father's murder.

While investigating a fresh lead in the cold case, she is captured by the Paranormal Intelligence Agency (PIA). There she learns she is a paranorm with the ability of shadow manipulation, the power to create and hide in artificial shadows.

Lorna loves her ability and is eager to learn more but when it becomes obvious that the PIA has an agenda, she escapes. Life becomes even more complicated when she falls in love with her next target, a king of a small island. When he learns she is the assassin, he wants nothing to do with her.

With worries that her assassin lifestyle has doomed her to a life without love, Lorna struggles to master her power and solve her father’s murder.

What do you guys think? I'm not sure the last line is strong enough. Any suggestions? I always struggle writing pitches.

So Friday was an adventure. I went to the Long Island Romance Writers Luncheon. My GPS said it should take me 2 hours to get there. It took me 3 hours and 10 minutes to get down there (good thing I gave myself an extra hour for traffic so I was only a little late). It took me 3 1/2 hours to get home. Traffic was horrific!

But the keynote speaker, Steven Zacharius, President of Kensington Books, was wonderful. I sat next to Heather Osborn, editor for the romance line at Tor. In addition to talk to Heather about my assassin story, I talked to Diana Fox. As for my fantasy YA novel, I pitched to Jennifer Didik, Amy Boggs, Emmanuelle Alspaugh, and Anne Bohner. Anne Bohner also sat at the same table I did and seems so knowledge despite being a newer agent.

I've already queried some of the agents and am getting ready to query the rest. I went to the luncheon last year and had a good experience then too. It really is a wonderful networking opportunity - there were 11 agents and 8 editors, plus Steven. Hopefully I'll be hearing back from the agents soon with full requests. :) If anyone lives near the Long Island area, I would highly recommend going to the luncheon next year. The food was excellent and the chocolate mousse dessert was phenomenal.