IWTN Entry 7: Steve and Austin, MG Adventure

Title: STEVE AND AUSTIN

Word Count: 44,000

Genre: MG Adventure w/light sci-fi

 

Query:

 

Eleven-year-old Jackson Solis lost his legs when he and his bicycle tangled with a fast-moving SUV. Now he’s a test case for state-of-the-art bionic replacements. They’re faster and stronger than his old legs, but he’s not impressed -- he just feels like a robot freak boy.

He keeps the bionics a secret so no one will know how different he really is. Only his parents and best friend know the truth -- everyone else believes he wears ordinary prosthetics. But keeping secrets is exhausting and so is the recovery from his accident. The only fun he’s had lately was deciding to name his legs “Steve” and “Austin” after the main character of an old TV show about a bionic man.

Then Jackson overhears that someone’s trying to sabotage the high tech helicopter spy gear that his father, an Army colonel, is testing. If the tech is destroyed, his dad’s career will nosedive, and they’ll probably have to move. Jackson would lose his best friend and everything he has left that’s normal. He knows the adults would never agree to his plan, so he decides to keep one more secret -- he’s going after whoever’s behind the trouble. After all, no one else can chase a bad guy faster than the kid with bionic legs. 

IWTN Entry 8: Oliver's Ghost Machine, Upper MG Dark Fantasy

Title: Oliver's Ghost Machine

Word count: 54,000

Genre: Upper MG Dark Fantasy (w/steampunk elements)

Query:

No respectable home in Orchard Knob is complete without at least one resident specter, and most folks can’t imagine life any other way – except for Oliver. There hasn’t been a ghost in his house since before he was born. And bein’ that Oliver’s pa is the town’s mortician, everyone knows they should have more ghosts than anyone.

So when the ghost of Elijah Banks shows up saying his niece, Lena, is dead and that Oliver’s the only one who can keep her from crossing over, Oliver is certain ol’ Elijah has gone soft in the head. Especially when Elijah claims helping Lena will also solve Oliver’s ghost dilemma.

It’s crazy talk is what it is.

But then Pa decides to train Oliver in the family business using Grandpa’s old embalming room in the cellar – on the same day Lena’s body arrives. One accident with an embalming hose later and Oliver’s seein’ things no one else can, like the dark tethers attacking the town’s ghosts at night. And if that weren’t enough, Pa starts calling him things like “sensitive.”

Now Oliver needs answers as much for himself as he does for Elijah and Lena – and even his own family – who might accidentally be responsible for the attacks on the town’s ghosts. Before long it’s a race against his family’s secrets to keep the dark tethers from consuming Lena and the rest of the ghosts in town. And Oliver’s gonna get his answers, just as soon as he can get up enough nerve to go back in his cellar. 

IWTN Entry 9: In Between Them, YA Contemporary

Title: IN BETWEEN THEM

Word Count: 84,000 words

Genre: YA Contemporary

Query:

Being a good friend is everything to seventeen-year-old Cass Petrovsky.

All that’s required is a heavy dose of support and loyalty—two qualities that she and her best friend Alex Patton share. So when an innocent touch multiplies into dozens between Alex and Graham, the guy Cass has loved since forever, Cass shakes off her paranoia. Alex knows better. But soon Alex confesses what Cass was too trusting to consider—she and Graham hooked up. So much for loyalty.

Cass is wrecked. Her future with Graham is shot, despite that they were inseparable friends on the verge of something greater. And Alex apologized so sincerely that it’s impossible to hold on to hate. Besides, Alex is happy with Graham, and good friends do not crush each other’s happiness. Period. Losing face is better than losing them both. Forgiveness is the only option.

As Cass moves on, Graham comes forward with a confession too: he made a mistake. An impulsive kiss throws Cass into an unforgiveable role with the guy she always wanted, the guy who’s now off-limits by her own rules. The timing couldn’t be worse. With Alex desperate to find the reason beneath Graham’s change of heart, Cass sticks to the perfect best friend role—spying, sneaking, scheming to help Alex win Graham back. It’s so wrong it’s criminal. But things are no longer black and white. Love and friendship twisted the two into gray.

IWTN Entry 10: Missing, YA Contemporary

Title: MISSING

Word Count: 83,000

Genre: YA Contemporary

Query:

After blowing off a phone call from her best friend Michelle because she didn't want to listen to anymore boyfriend drama, Annie comes home from the movies to two detectives sitting in her living room ready to interrogate her. Somehow classic good-girl Michelle was officially missing, and now everyone wanted to know everything Annie did. As Annie tries to wrap her head around the situation, Michelle's sketchy dad starts painting a different picture of who his daughter was compared to the friend Annie thought she knew. In the pursuit of clearing both her and her former best friend's name, Annie starts her own investigation with the help of a young detective. As Annie continues to uncover the murky truth, she finds it harder and harder to ignore the guilt welling up inside of her.

But when Michelle's remains are found years later, everyone starts finding closure--well, everyone except Annie, who travels home from college for the memorial only to find herself face-to-face with Michelle's family and her own painful past. This time though, her best friend's younger sister, Sam, is at the age where Michelle started having trouble with dear old, creeptastic dad and reaches out to Annie for help-- especially because she has her own suspicions as to what happened to her half sister.

Reuniting with her detective friend who doesn't seem quite as old as he did back then, Annie tries to crack the case herself. Only this time, Annie discovers a lot more than she bargains for in the area of life, love, and how to move on.

IWTN Entry 11: Marked, YA Urban Fantasy

Title: Marked

Word count: 73,000

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Query:

 

Lexi Fletcher doesn’t do bloodshed. She’s co-president of her high school PAW Club, loves all things animal, and hates anything that brings people or creatures harm. When the family secret turns out to be a heritage of monster slaying as protectors of the city of Golden Peak, her birthright goes against her beliefs. With the death of her Uncle Lucas, a daughter isMarked. It’s unprecedented and unacceptable. Lexi isn’t the chosen one; she’s an accident.

Lexi is plagued by visions of bloody battles, despairing dreams of loves lost, and stuck with a few jerks who refuse to take the “No Girls Allowed” sign off the entrance to their secret hideout. Worse, she senses danger looming in wait, but the warriors won’t listen to her. The Brotherhood’s patriarchal practices may deem her unworthy, but this…thing, whatever it is, doesn’t care about their judgments. It’s closing in, and with it, the evil that killed her predecessor.

IWTN Entry 12: The GAP Project, YA Science Fiction

Title: The GAP Project
Word count: 67,000
Genre: YA/Sci-Fi

 

Query:

When kids in Ginny Carrera's hometown go missing, parents everywhere begin taking extra precautions. They install security systems, out door lighting, and even activate the GPS in their children’s cell phones. Not her folks. They build a panic room. She thinks they’ve gone a little overboard—code for gone completely batshit insane—until they actually have to use it. Only, Ginny isn’t the one taken.

 

Men in black abduct her parents, leaving Ginny alone to face a secret they've kept hidden all these years: Her. Ginny isn't human, not entirely. In fact, going by the research notes in her father's study, her DNA looks like something out of the X-Men. And that's just the opening act in this genetic freak show. The missing kids are all part of a government program. Ginny is the Trinity, the crown jewel of the government’s secret genetics program, making her federal property, and the number one target of a corrupt senator.

With the help of lifelong friends, Toad and Mayo, Ginny uncovers Senator Emerson’s plot to sell her—whole or in parts—to the highest bidder, and discovers he’s behind her parents’ disappearance. If she wants her life—and loved ones—back, she’ll have to take down this madman, using the very science he commissioned to create her.

IWTN Entry 13: Book of Adam, YA Urban Fantasy

Title: The Book of Adam
Word count: 95,000
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Query:

Adam Shelley’s folks peddle hoodoo spells for a living, so crazy house rules like ‘never ditch your evil spirit-repelling mojo-bag,’ come with the territory. At sixteen though, he’s more worried about the bag, which smells like whiskey and stinky feet, driving away his girlfriend than evil.

When a classmate’s ridicule pushes Adam past his breaking point, he throws a punch and accidentally squishes his mojo-bag. Mama’s gonna kill him, but for one night maybe he can make out with his girlfriend sans mojo-stench. He never imagines his tiny misstep will make him dinner for a gang of rogue Immortals. Pale, clawed, and fanged—the Immortals spill his guts over the oaks like Spanish moss. As he’s dying, Adam’s mama, a disgraced alchemist, makes him an Immortal using her secret Philosopher’s Stone.

Now Adam’s forced to live by a new crazy rule. Obey the Immortal Council’s iron will or go to Hell. His first command: surrender Mama’s stone by the Spring Equinox (a measly 148 days).

Adam would, gladly … except the stone and his mama have both been missing since Adam’s rebirth. Setting out to find the stone that might save his afterlife, his first lead ends with a crackpot chem teacher slicing him open. Turns out Mama didn’t heal Adam with her stone, she stuck it inside him to keep it from the Immortals who killed him. Since the stone’s the only thing keeping him alive, Adam hopes capturing the rogues will appease the Council. And revenge? That’s an added bonus.

IWTN Entry 14, Eponine, YA Urban Fantasy

TITLE: Eponine
WORD COUNT: 83,000
GENRE: YA Urban Fantasy

QUERY:

Eponine “Poni” Thorpe doesn’t care about high school, her parents’ crime sprees, or even the User abilities she was born with. All she cares about is her best friend Mark. He’s the only one who can keep the rot from her soul, the only reason she Uses magic at all.

Then Cassie Vandenberg moves to town and she’s all Mark sees. Poni can’t compete with Cassie or her California Barbie charm so she gives up trying to be the perfect girl for Mark and agrees to help her parents on a job—something she swore she would never do again. When the job turns out to be kidnapping Cassie, Poni knows she’s made a big mistake and has to fix it or she’ll lose the only person who’s ever cared for her.

Now Poni’s parents are out to get her for screwing with their plans. In order to keep herself and Mark safe, Poni must find the connection between her parents and Cassie Vandenberg. What she uncovers might be enough to take down her parents, Cassie, and even the User society she was born into. But going that far means lying, bribery, and pain. It means becoming that rotten version of herself she’s always tried to hide from Mark. Poni must decide whether saving Mark’s life is worth losing him for good.

IWTN Entry 15: Side Show, YA Literary

Title: Side Show

Word Count: 69,000

Genre: YA Literary

Query:

For fourteen years Josie’s life was made up of her father’s drunken nights of gambling until the price of his failure becomes the loss of her freedom.  Josie is taken from her home and swept into the world of the circus in 1926 where her previously weird talent of extreme flexibility is used to make her a great contortionist and travel America with her stage "sister" Sara. 

As their friendship grows, Sara and Josie develop a Rag Doll show where Josie learns to move her body in ways that she never imagined possible.  Their performance becomes the top earner of the Side Show and Josie finally feels like she’s found a home in the spotlight and applause. 

  

Surrounded by other Side Show workers including a Strong Man, Romanian fortune teller, shady management and dedicated workhands, Josie learns the powerful force of love and destruction of hate and greed.  But through her performances and time among the other Side Show workers Josie begins to, for the first time, look forward to her future.

When Sara and Josie decide to leave the Side Show to start a life of their own, Josie is faced with learning about the importance of family, not by blood but of spirit.  She discovers that home isn’t a place but the people you consider family, a lesson she has to learn before she loses everything and everyone she loves to the wonder of the Side Show.

IWTN Entry 16: The Beamer Boys, YA Dark Contemporary

Title: The Beamer Boys

Word Count: 60,000

Genre: YA dark contemporary

Query:

Stokes Brokaw lives in the town of Wheaton, a choice slice of upper-middle class suburbia where bad things don’t ever seem to happen.  

That changes when the Coyonga Kings, a gang of teenaged thugs comes into Wheaton from Bullhead, a poor town on the other side of the Coyonga River. Showing up at a local park where Stokes and his friends are hanging out, they declare that the park is now permanently off-limits. Stokes talks trash and refuses to leave, but unlike Gage ‘Hitter’ McCoy, the gang’s leader, his fists can’t back up his boasts.  

Left with a bloodied face and a heart full of fear, Stokes convinces his friends to form a gang to protect themselves and defend Wheaton from an outside threat. Summer vacation turns into a brutal boot camp as they turn themselves into living weapons.

Tensions between the two rival gangs explode after a parking lot scuffle ends in tragedy for a Coyonga King. Enraged, Gage demands an all-out gang brawl. Stokes knows he's in deeper than he ever wanted. The decision to back down or fight is on him, and his choice could mean the end of more than just his gang.

IWTN Entry 17, One on One, YA Contemporary Romance

Title: ONE ON ONE

Wordcount: 85,000

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Query:

Lone Breeze Ranch is sixteen-year-old Gigi Smith’s personal definition of being benched, indefinitely. Transplanted to the Texas Hill country to help care for her ailing grandfather, she traded San Francisco and her coveted spot on the varsity basketball team for a Stetson and stinking horse stalls. All she wants is home.

For Rider James, the ranch manager’s seventeen-year-old son, home isn’t where his heart is. He yearns to grab college by the horns, but his broken family keeps him corralled behind Lone Breeze’s wrought-iron gate. And although she makes a dang good opponent on the court, dealing with Gigi, the boss’ granddaughter, is just…work.

As Grandpa Smith’s Alzheimer’s worsens, the Smith and James families scramble to save the failing ranch. When a generation-old legend of Lone Breeze’s buried treasure surfaces, Gigi’s convinced finding it is the only way back home, though Rider thinks it’s a dead end. As her search heats up, so does their friendship. Their love of basketball isn’t the only thing they have in common, but Rider’s life is already a hot mess without crossing the James/Smith line. But when Grandpa goes missing, Gigi and Rider must team up to find him—and maybe, that treasure. If they can’t, they’ll lose everything they call home, and each other.

IWTN Entry 18: The Long Walk Home, YA Horror

Title: The Long Walk Home

Word Count: 65,000

Genre: YA Horror

Query: 

When you’re the target of the sadistic town bully, being the night watchman of a haunted graveyard has its advantages ...

After sixteen-year-old Tommy Quinn’s deadbeat mother cleans out their bank account and bolts, he, his dad, and little brother find themselves homeless until his dad gets a live-in position at a historic graveyard. The job seems okay at first, but the cemetery, known to the townspeople as The Devil’s Graveyard, has a long and sordid history. Tommy’s dad’s main duty is to stand guard during the night to keep the place free of vandals and psychopaths, but soon he’s hitting the bottle again and in order to keep the job and their new home … even if the house is creepy and most likely haunted … Tommy’s going to have to pick up the slack. 

After Tommy pisses off the main bully at school, the goon and his friends come to the graveyard looking to vandalize the place … and Tommy’s the one standing guard. Self-defense soon turns into casualties and a semi-deserted graveyard with a few open graves becomes a convenient way to cover up the mess, until a similar incident happens again … and then again. Guilt-ridden and fearful of what exactly the seven foot thing that came out of the shadows to defend him was, Tommy wonders if the horrors of the Devil’s Graveyard are more than just a superstitious town’s urban legends.  He soon realizes that living at the Devil’s Graveyard will eventually cost him, or someone he loves, their life.

IWTN Entry 19: Encircled, YA Fantasy

Title: ENCIRCLED

Word Count: 95,000

Genre: YA Fantasy

Query:

When seventeen-year-old Elisabeth Bell Pierce adds her mother's ashes to the centuries of dust at Bell Hall, she's afraid the secrets of her mother's mysterious past have been lost forever.

In the crumbling English castle that was her mother's childhood home, Elisabeth searches for a connection to her mother, a path through her grief, and the source of the creeping noises that echo through the stone walls each night.

While Elisabeth gets lost in the gloomy corridors, her father, fanatical historian Dr. Harrison Pierce, excavates the grounds in his quest to find England's infamous Lost Princes -- a search that violates her mother's final, unexplained wishes to leave Bell Hall undisturbed forever.

Hiding from the grief she can't escape, and her dad's attempts to enlist her in his quest, Elisabeth stumbles upon a concealed tunnel -- where a familiar creeping echo leads her to Bell Hall's darkest secret.

Deep beneath the castle, Richard of York, Lost Prince of England, has waited faithfully for over 500 years, bewitched to live in darkness until his stolen kingdom is restored. In Richard's arms, Elisabeth finds relief from her grief -- and forges a connection with her mother she never expected.

But as her father digs closer to unearthing England's Lost Prince, and revealing him to the world, Elisabeth must figure out a way to rescue Richard from his spellbound prison, or find the strength to hide him forever in darkness, and walk her path of grief alone — because not everything that's lost wants to be found.