Missouri Khals

Missouri Khals tells Missouri and Bindi's story. As children, they grew up together on Missouri's parents' sheep station in Australia's Great Southern where they worked as jillaroos, but Missouri's passion was weightlifting. Missouri received a full scholarship for athletes with exceptional ability. While attending college, Missouri competed in Australian and International weightlifting competitions where she eventually won an Olympic gold medal. Her achievements and character made Missouri the poster girl for female recruitment in all branches of the Australian Armed Forces. As Missouri and Bindi faced graduation and Missouri's pending military service, Bindi and Missouri realized their lives, as they knew them, would change forever. Having grown up together and having been best friends their entire lives, neither wanted that to happen. As their lives progressed, they intertwined as Missouri served out a distinguished career in the Australian Army's Intelligence Corps, while Bindi lived a life as a woman of leisure. Together, and with their implicit trust in each other, they disrupted Chinese intelligence nets, turned Chinese intelligence assets and obtained highly valued Chinese national security information.

Amazon Polly - AI Voice

Missouri Khals, Chapter One, Audio File.

Of Note, Amazon Polly's AI does a pretty good job as a reader, but you'll note a certain lack of intonation in the reader's voice. Also, the AI cannot disquise between words like "red" and "read." So when you hear the error, it's the AI, not the text. Also, this audio file was created in February 2023. The AI may have been updated since the file was created. I'm hoping to have an update in 2026. I'll know then if the AI has gotten smarter.

I've inserted an audio sample of the Novel to give prospective readers the flavor and feel for the Novel.

Full Marketing Report

ManuscriptReport.com's entire Report is accessible in pdf format by clicking on Full Marketing Report. ManuscriptReport.com describes the Marketing Report as a marketing Swiss Army knife for Missouri Khals. The Report provides ready-to-deploy sales copy, strategic keywords, audience profiles, comparison titles, a step-by-step marketing roadmap, synopsis, themes, sales pitches, generes, target audience, and much more. The Report is really quite interesting and I encourage you to have a look.

Authors A.I.'s Marlowe Analysis

Overview - Missouri Khals is an ambitious, sprawling novel that follows its protagonist from rural Australia to Olympic glory to dangerous intelligence operations in China. The work demonstrates strong storytelling instincts with compelling characters and an intricate plot spanning multiple countries and time periods.

Premise / Elevator Pitch - An Australian sheep station girl becomes an Olympic weightlifting champion and Special Forces officer who embarks on dangerous intelligence missions in China alongside her lifelong friend and fellow escort worker while navigating blackmail, espionage, and a high-stakes rescue operation.

Potential Readers - Missouri Khals will appeal to readers who enjoy complex female protagonists in military and espionage settings, particularly those interested in Australian perspectives and contemporary geopolitical tensions.

Archetype - Missouri Khals is most similar to the Descent story archetype.

Genere & Story Type - Missouri Khals is primarily a Military Thriller with strong espionage elements. The story also contains elements of the following:

• Contemporary Women's Fiction
• Coming-of-Age Fiction
• Adventure Fiction
• Political Thriller
• Biographical Fiction
• Romance
• Erotic Fiction
• Action/Adventure
• International Fiction

Theme Analysis - The primary theme explores the tension between personal loyalty and professional duty, examining how deep friendships survive when career advancement and institutional obligations conflict with personal relationships. This theme is represented through Missouri's willingness to risk her military career and life to rescue Bindi from Chinese imprisonment.

Secondary themes include:

• Cultural identity and assimilation: The challenge of maintaining Aboriginal cultural connections while succeeding in predominantly white institutions.
• The cost of moral compromise: How intelligence work requires deception and manipulation that conflicts with personal values.
• Female empowerment in male institutions: Women breaking barriers in military and intelligence services while facing systemic discrimination.

Word Count - Missouri Khals contains about 95,205 words.

While there are no hard-and-fast rules about minimum and maximum story lengths, there are industry traditions and reader expectations. If you want to give yourself your best chance without having to fight any additional uphill battles, then writing with the word count guidelines for your genre in mind is often the wisest course. (Getting your word count right will also cut down on editing costs.)

Here’s a quick reference for typical word counts by genre:

• Adult contemporary fiction: 70,000-90,000 words
• Literary fiction: 80,000-120,000 words
• Romance: 50,000-90,000 words (mostly 70,000-90,000)
• Science fiction/Fantasy: 80,000-120,000 words (longer for epic fantasy)
• Historical fiction: 80,000-120,000 words
• Mystery/Crime: 60,000-90,000 words (cozy mysteries are shorter)
• Horror: 80,000-100,000 words
• Thriller: 70,000-100,000 words
• Westerns: 50,000-80,000 words
• Young adult: 50,000-90,000 words

For genre-bending works, the word count should typically align with the genre that has the higher range (e.g., romantic fantasy would follow fantasy’s 80,000-120,000 words). In some cases, indie authors choose to serialize a story — say, three fantasy novels of 40,000 words instead of one novel of 120,000 words.

Trigger Warnings - Missouri Khals contains sexual violence including rape, physical violence and combat, torture and imprisonment, human trafficking, government oppression and genocide references, substance use, and explicit sexual content. The narrative addresses serious human rights violations in detention facilities and includes graphic descriptions of physical confrontation and weapons violence. Readers sensitive to themes of imprisonment, sexual assault, or cultural persecution may find portions of the content disturbing.