synopsis, round 2
Jul. 11th, 2012 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
holliIt grew on revising, which I'm pretty sure is the opposite of what's supposed to happen. Oh dear. Well, it's still under a page. Plus it's a little less blah and flat, and a little more coherent about the plot.
Leah Archer and her friends are the only Wiccans in their sleepy Chicago suburb. For them, it’s more about rebellion than real magic-- which doesn’t exist, of course. But when a spellcasting goes strange, an unconscious man in old-fashioned clothes and a golden crown appears from thin air. Leah’s friend Noreen, the mastermind behind the spell, disappears soon after.
A boy named Jake comes to town, claiming to be the sleeping man’s son, but he can’t wake his father up. What he can do is declare that Leah’s bratty little sister, Leslie, is in fact his long-lost sibling, and thus a princess with magical powers of her own. Jake’s been searching for her since his parents’ Court fell a decade ago and he escaped their island kingdom into exile. Neither Leah nor Leslie believe a word of it, though, since Leslie’s not even adopted.
When a murderous changeling disguised as Noreen attacks Leah, Leslie’s magic shows itself. It looks like Jake is right, and nobody but him is happy about that.
Leah’s always wanted to have the kind of adventure she loves to read about, but now that it’s happening she’s having second thoughts. For one thing, she’d like to be the one with magic and a special destiny, not Leslie-- and it’s not as though Leslie even wants the job. And poor Noreen has been kidnapped, snatched away to a kingdom caught in a ten-year winter.
Leah just wants to rescue her friend and get Jake and his father out of her life. But Jake won’t take Leah to the kingdom of his birth without Leslie. Despite Leah’s reservations, the three of them travel from the suburbs to the shores of Lake Michigan, where they hitch a ride with exiled selkies.
Once arrived, they meet up with a couple of smugglers who give them their first look at the winter-bound Island. To Leah, it looks like Narnia after a mudslide: cold, gray, dirty, and dead. But when they seek passage under the mountains, they discover there’s still life on the island, hidden underground. And all the while, Leslie is growing closer to Jake and farther from Leah.
After a couple of near misses, almost rescuing Noreen each time, they arrive at the castle where she’s 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 a fellow prisoner free from a stolen book. Once she has an ally she can trust, the two of them 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 their sleepy Chicago suburb. For them, it’s more about rebellion than real magic-- which doesn’t exist, of course. But when a spellcasting goes strange, an unconscious man in old-fashioned clothes and a golden crown appears from thin air. Leah’s friend Noreen, the mastermind behind the spell, disappears soon after.
A boy named Jake comes to town, claiming to be the sleeping man’s son, but he can’t wake his father up. What he can do is declare that Leah’s bratty little sister, Leslie, is in fact his long-lost sibling, and thus a princess with magical powers of her own. Jake’s been searching for her since his parents’ Court fell a decade ago and he escaped their island kingdom into exile. Neither Leah nor Leslie believe a word of it, though, since Leslie’s not even adopted.
When a murderous changeling disguised as Noreen attacks Leah, Leslie’s magic shows itself. It looks like Jake is right, and nobody but him is happy about that.
Leah’s always wanted to have the kind of adventure she loves to read about, but now that it’s happening she’s having second thoughts. For one thing, she’d like to be the one with magic and a special destiny, not Leslie-- and it’s not as though Leslie even wants the job. And poor Noreen has been kidnapped, snatched away to a kingdom caught in a ten-year winter.
Leah just wants to rescue her friend and get Jake and his father out of her life. But Jake won’t take Leah to the kingdom of his birth without Leslie. Despite Leah’s reservations, the three of them travel from the suburbs to the shores of Lake Michigan, where they hitch a ride with exiled selkies.
Once arrived, they meet up with a couple of smugglers who give them their first look at the winter-bound Island. To Leah, it looks like Narnia after a mudslide: cold, gray, dirty, and dead. But when they seek passage under the mountains, they discover there’s still life on the island, hidden underground. And all the while, Leslie is growing closer to Jake and farther from Leah.
After a couple of near misses, almost rescuing Noreen each time, they arrive at the castle where she’s 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 a fellow prisoner free from a stolen book. Once she has an ally she can trust, the two of them 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?
