Friday, April 18, 2014

Practice Query #4


Dear Evil Editor,

I am seeking representation for my 80,000 word YA paranormal romance, “Stronger than the Night.”

Ella Van Helsing has always slept with a light on. As a child, she sobbed at every sunset. Ella suffers from nyctophobia, an abnormal fear of the night. But Ella isn’t a child any longer -- she’s sixteen, and she wants to ask hunky Taylor Smith to the end-of-term school dance. Ella must overcome her self-imposed ‘home-before-dark’ curfew, or kiss any chance of romance with Taylor good-bye. Adding to the pressure, Ella’s dad is famous vampire-hunter Abraham Van Helsing IV, and he’s deeply ashamed of his daughter.

Ella’s first planned foray into the night, a quick trip to the grocery store, becomes a life-or-death chase through the streets of modern London when she witnesses a trio of vampires kidnap her little brother. In Hyde Park she loses sight of the vampires, but stumbles into a werewolf pack meeting — Taylor’s pack. Her school crush turns out to be the son of the pack’s alpha female, who takes pity on Ella and commands a resentful Taylor to help her.

Ella’s desperate race pushes her to the breaking point, but aided by her wits, Taylor’s supernatural senses, and the garlic marinara sauce in her shopping bag, Ella prevails. She not only rescues her brother and vanquishes her fears, she wins her father’s respect – and Taylor’s adoration.

Thank you for your consideration.


--IMHO

2 comments:

fairyhedgehog said...

This is wonderful. I'm sure it would be an instant success!

Dave Fragments said...

Given all the "amped-up" teenage vampire and werewolf stories in books, TV and cable today, this actually works.

"IMHO" - you did a nice job.

To be nerdy, it's a bit wordy but that's like being a grammar jerk.

The heroine being the daughter of a Van HElsing works and you have to get the ready past the "scared of the dark" business but that's minor. I mean what's so hard about believing that when we got buff and cute boy werewolves and vampires?

But vampires and werewolves are my big problem in much of that literature. I very rarely enter into the realm ov vampires and werewolves unless I have a unique angle on them. The reason is that Anne Rice did vampires in a spectacular way and Twilight seems to have the stereotype of teen werewolves (not to mention an entire TV series set in HS).

And in my defense, let me say this: I could write some boy meets girl thing and make it poignant like Romeo and Juliet -- forbidden love ending in tragedy -- but I (me myself and I) want to write more than just a variation of that.

So this is my little screed about plots. a "Peeve" isn't as cute a pet as a puppy of a kitten
;)