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holliSo I think I've got the query hammered out to my satisfaction. But a lot of agencies want a one-page synopsis, too, and that is proving to be trickier. Possibly because the book itself is hard to summarize.
Leah Archer and her friends are the only Wiccans in the tri-country area. For them, it’s more about rebellion than real magic. But when a spellcasting goes strange, an unconscious man in old-fashioned clothes and a golden crown appears from thin air. One of Leah’s friends disappears soon after, kidnapped away to a kingdom caught in a ten-year winter.
A boy named Jake arrives, claiming to be the man’s son, but he can’t wake his father up. He can, however, declare that Leah’s bratty little sister, Leslie, is in fact his long-lost sister, and thus a princess with magical powers of her own. Leah’s always wanted to have the kind of adventure she loves to read about, but this isn’t what she’d hoped for. For one thing, she’d like to be the one with magic and a special destiny, not Leslie. It’s not as though Leslie even wants the job.
Leah just wants to rescue her friend and get these strangers out of her life. But Jake won’t take Leah to the kingdom of his birth unless Leslie comes along. The three of them set out, despite Leah’s misgivings, and travel from the suburbs of Chicago to a magical island under the rule of a tyrannical Winter Court. All the while, Leslie is growing closer to Jake-- and farther from Leah.
Leah, Leslie and Jake hitch a ride with exiled selkies, meeting up with a couple of smugglers who give them their first look at the winter-bound Island. It looks, to Leah’s eyes, like Narnia after a mudslide: cold, gray, dirty, and dead. There’s still life underground, though, as they find out when they seek passage under the mountains.
After a couple of near misses, they arrive at the castle where Leah’s friend is being held. They discover that the island’s many missing people have been transformed into books, piled onto shelves in the castle cellars-- and then are promptly captured themselves. Alone, with no other chance at escape, Leah finds a spark of magical ability within herself and reads free a fellow prisoner from a stolen book. Once she has an ally she can trust, the two of them are able to escape, rescue the others, and flee the castle with the Winter Court at their heels.
Now all they have to do is get past the dragon, and they can go home. Easy, right?
Leah Archer and her friends are the only Wiccans in the tri-country area. For them, it’s more about rebellion than real magic. But when a spellcasting goes strange, an unconscious man in old-fashioned clothes and a golden crown appears from thin air. One of Leah’s friends disappears soon after, kidnapped away to a kingdom caught in a ten-year winter.
A boy named Jake arrives, claiming to be the man’s son, but he can’t wake his father up. He can, however, declare that Leah’s bratty little sister, Leslie, is in fact his long-lost sister, and thus a princess with magical powers of her own. Leah’s always wanted to have the kind of adventure she loves to read about, but this isn’t what she’d hoped for. For one thing, she’d like to be the one with magic and a special destiny, not Leslie. It’s not as though Leslie even wants the job.
Leah just wants to rescue her friend and get these strangers out of her life. But Jake won’t take Leah to the kingdom of his birth unless Leslie comes along. The three of them set out, despite Leah’s misgivings, and travel from the suburbs of Chicago to a magical island under the rule of a tyrannical Winter Court. All the while, Leslie is growing closer to Jake-- and farther from Leah.
Leah, Leslie and Jake hitch a ride with exiled selkies, meeting up with a couple of smugglers who give them their first look at the winter-bound Island. It looks, to Leah’s eyes, like Narnia after a mudslide: cold, gray, dirty, and dead. There’s still life underground, though, as they find out when they seek passage under the mountains.
After a couple of near misses, they arrive at the castle where Leah’s friend is being held. They discover that the island’s many missing people have been transformed into books, piled onto shelves in the castle cellars-- and then are promptly captured themselves. Alone, with no other chance at escape, Leah finds a spark of magical ability within herself and reads free a fellow prisoner from a stolen book. Once she has an ally she can trust, the two of them are able to escape, rescue the others, and flee the castle with the Winter Court at their heels.
Now all they have to do is get past the dragon, and they can go home. Easy, right?
no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 02:55 am (UTC)It's a good first draft of a summary. Let me poke at it a bit, and I'll see if I can come up with some useful suggestions.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 02:56 am (UTC)