NoQS Minion 11: THE CURSE OF JENNY GREENTEETH, YA Thriller

Title: THE CURSE OF JENNY GREENTEETH

Genre: YA Thriller

Word Count: 86,000

My Main Character's Most Fearsome Obsession is: Sophie worries most that she won’t be able to find her little brother. That the hole his absence created in her family will never be filled. Every day, the light in her parent’s eyes dims, more and more and she can’t find a way to stop it unless she brings her brother home. But what if she can’t? His disappearance is such a mystery, and she doesn’t know where to begin to look for him.

Query:

Seventeen-year-old Sophie Howell's Gram is dying. In the midst of the most painful thing Sophie has ever dealt with, her younger brother goes missing. But Gram's deathbed warning launches Sophie on a mysterious hunt for him.

Desperate to find her brother, Sophie investigates his disappearance. She discovers her brother isn’t the first to go missing. Children of her quaint fishing town have vanished into the fog for centuries, lured by the keening call of ghost witch, Jenny Greenteeth.

Drawn to the frozen pond where Greenteeth haunts, Sophie encounters the mysterious and handsome Foster Grimm, a boy with a big reputation and an unexplainable desire to help her. She vows to ignore how he makes her heart beat faster and do everything she can to save her family and find the missing children, even if facing Greenteeth means losing her own life.

First 250 Words: 

In the wispy dark of a foggy night, the children come. The children die.

Jenny Greenteeth croons to them, her keening call they cannot deny.

Chapter 1

Gram was dying and it couldn’t happen soon enough. Not that I didn’t love her and wish she could be with us forever, but her frail body fought for each breath it took. The oxygen mask offered her so little relief, I didn’t think it was worth strapping it to her face. No one wanted to watch their beloved Gram die that way, drowning without a drop of water in sight.

Sam’s sobs drifted through Gram’s closed bedroom door. Dad said eight was way too young to take part in the vigil, but we chose to keep her at home, so he knew what was happening. This room would always be haunted by Gram’s final breaths and Sam’s sobs.

Mom had long since stopped crying. I think she was numb. She sat in a chair next to the bed and stared at the blankets covering Gram’s small frame. I wondered if, like me, she wanted this to be over. For Gram, her own mom, to have some peace

“She’ll finally be at rest,” said Dad. The scratch in his voice belied the stern set to his face.

Gram had been a constant in our lives. She’d lived with us longer than I had. We made the move to the east coast last year just for her.