Team Snow 9: THE LATE PRINCESS GWENDOLYN, YA Fantasy

Title: THE LATE PRINCESS GWENDOLYN

Genre: YA Fantasy

Word Count: 75,000

 

Is your antagonist hot or cold?

Morgan, enchantress and reigning “fairest in all the land,” is as shifting and devious in temper as a tropical storm, an unpredictable mixture of both hot and cold. Although she can be cool and calculating when it comes to manipulating her many lovers, she has a hot temper when competition comes into play. She’s a cold-blooded killer with a very low boiling point.

Query:

Princess Gwendolyn has only ever wanted one thing—for True Love to sweep her off her feet and into her very own happily ever after—at least, until Gwendolyn realizes her own “ever after” involves dying before she turns eighteen.

Locked high in a tower, awaiting a kiss from her One True Love, the goose boy, Luther, Gwendolyn is visited instead by an evil enchantress. Bent on being the “fairest in all the land,” the bitter sorceress curses Gwendolyn. Instead of the kiss she craves, Gwendolyn dies alone in the tower.

Caught in an awkward limbo between life and death, maggots are the least of Gwendolyn’s concerns when her own father decides his undead daughter would be better off under a headstone. And even worse than being hunted by her own father is the fact that her former betrothed is the first to turn on her, leading the King’s Army on their mission to stop the dead princess from further embarrassing the Crown.

On a quest to find her missing happily ever after and avoid the clutches of her father’s army, Gwendolyn teams up with an ancient knight, a beheaded prince, and a bumbling witch, and realizes that even though her heart no longer beats, it can still find True Love. Despite only having three heads out of the four of them, and barely enough body parts to get by, Gwendolyn and her band of merry misfits must figure out how to break the spell before she rots. And they must do it all in spite of the vengeful sorceress determined to finish the job she started, and a “True Love” who wants her crown more than her kiss.

THE PRINCESS BRIDE meets STARDUST.

First 250 Words:

                                  

So, this is how True Love begins, Gwendolyn thought, as she awaited her parents’ response to the news that she was engaged.

It wasn’t exactly how she’d pictured announcing her betrothal. For one thing, the King, Queen, Princess, and Royal Priest were huddled on the bedspread of the royal bed. Although Gwendolyn’s grand daydreams of the announcement had involved cheering crowds gathered in the Royal Square, doves being released, and perhaps a trumpet or two, it was a well-known fact in the kingdom that the Royal Bedchamber was where things got done around the castle. The King had complained that he couldn't think if he was uncomfortable, so all the royal business was conducted on the King and Queen's bed, which was spacious enough for ten servants or more, depending on their respective sizes.

“What do you mean ‘engaged’?” the King rumbled. “In combat or in marriage?”

“Why, in marriage, of course, Father,” Gwendolyn replied, thinking of Luther. Even now, he waited outside the Royal Bedchamber to be summoned, a thought Gwendolyn found highly distracting.

“Your Highnesses, the Princess Gwendolyn has reached the age at which most princesses are, ahem, married,” the Royal Priest began, clearing his throat several times. He tugged on his vestments and would not meet Gwendolyn’s eyes. It was rather awkward, she thought, to be discussing such a matter in bed with a Priest, although at least everyone still had their clothes on. Nudity was frowned upon during Royal Meetings. For the most part, anyway.