Team Snow 5: THE FIRST IDOL, YA Fantasy

Title: THE FIRST IDOL

Genre: YA fantasy

Word Count: 77,000 words

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle:

Amateur alchemist Johnny Trekken already harnessed the power of the sun—once, by accident—and three of His Majesty’s Royal Navy airships were bludgeoned by an enormous sword made of fire that sank them into the hungry sea. Johnny knows that those sun-driven flames still reside within his pocket watch alchemy weapon. But until he masters the watch, he can only hope it will be the sun’s power that answers when he again calls it to his defense.

Team Snow 6: THE WISH STONE, YA Contemporary Fantasy

Title: THE WISH STONE

Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy

Word Count: 60,000

 

 

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle:

 

Frannie shrinks away from the stares the other school kids give her because of the symptoms of her disease. She hates having to explain what is wrong with her. Because of this, she prefers snow, especially when the drizzling flakes turn into a blizzard, and school is canceled. During snow days, she can cuddle up with her best friend and her mom in front of the TV without need of an excuse and temporarily forget how Huntington's is ravaging her body.

 

 

Team Snow 7: MONGRELS, YA Science Fiction

Title: MONGRELS

Genre: YA Science Fiction

Word Count: 86,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle: 

Definitely snow. Warmth reminds Erin too much of her Mom's embrace when she had the sniffles, or her Dad's Sunday roast—he always smoked up the kitchen, but never tried a different recipe. Using the sun would be like tearing her happy memories apart, all over again.

Cold is impersonal, logical, direct. The nights spent shivering in the base only fuel her desire to return to her parents' warm protection. And the people who've torn her away can freeze to death a million times over, for all she cares.

Team Snow 8: THE GREEN WELL, YA Fantasy

Title: THE GREEN WELL
Genre: YA fantasy
Word Count: 81,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle:

The eternal summer has lasted beyond memory. Isobel doesn’t know spring, winter, or fall, so she’s never encountered cold, much less snow. Neither of those forces would do much good against her enemy, the immortal Alder King, but she admits she finds the idea of hurling a snowball at his face delightful.

Team Snow 9: BALLAD OF A TEENAGE CANNIBAL, YA Humor/Fantasy

Title: BALLAD OF A TEENAGE CANNIBAL

Genre: YA Humor/Fantasy

Word Count: 60,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle: 

Cannibals, like slightly drunken moths, are naturally a little slow, a little prone to veer off course. So sending down a frigid blanket of snow would be just the ticket Billy would need to keep him a few booted steps ahead of their hungry agenda. Not that his axe couldn't take care of few eager mouths, but a little help from some sub zero temperatures would be just peachy. Plus, a wicked snow fort never hurt a soul. 

Team Snow 10: OPHELIA, YA Gothic

Title: OPHELIA

Genre: YA Gothic

Word Count: 84,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle:

My MC would find the sun more helpful in fighting her biggest obstacle, since the answers to some mysteries are buried deep and snow would make it that much harder to unearth the truth. The sun would also shed light on the harsh realities Ophelia needs to learn about those closest to her.

Team Snow 11: THE CURIOUS WILL OF JOHN GLENARM, YA Mystery

Title: THE CURIOUS WILL OF JOHN GLENARM

Genre: YA Mystery

Word Count: 80,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle: 

Sun!

Because you know what doesn’t mix well with snow? Construction. Below a certain temperature, cement foundations and brickwork won’t set. Shingles won’t seal, and are apt to be blown off by high spring winds.

If there’s one thing Julie learned from working in her grandfather’s construction business, it’s that business BOOMS in the summer. Which would be the perfect time for say, working on a half-finished mansion – left to you with more strings than a marionette puppet. Not now, not with winter coming.

Team Snow 12: KID FIRE AND THE SECRETS OF THE PIANO BOX, MG Mystery

Title: KID FIRE AND THE SECRETS OF THE PIANO BOX

Genre: MG Mystery

Word Count: 41,000

My Main Character would use snow or snow to battle their biggest obstacle:

 Sonny (a.k.a. Kid Fire) likes the cold and damp of remote Vallon Island. Until he doesn’t.  He’d hoped that here there’d be no such things as unexplained fires that he could be blamed for, but two blazes near his school have put Sonny in the “hot seat” and his only hope is for a spate of frigid rain until he can come up with a plan to clear his name. Whoever is starting the mysterious fires that are popping up must be stopped with a cool and cunning trap—and Sonny needs time to figure out how to set one.

 

Team Snow 13: THE PRINCESS OF TANGLED DAYS, MG Fantasy

Title: THE PRINCESS OF TANGLED DAYS

Genre: Upper MG Fantasy

Word Count: 86,000

  

My Main Character would use snow to battle their biggest obstacle: 

Here in the heat of the c-c-castle kitchen, if anyone looks past my scullery rags to wonder what sort of mind I might possess, their c-c-curiosity is quickly dispelled when I open my mouth to sp-sp-sp-speak. Upon hearing my st-st-stammering words, I’m dismissed as slow-witted, whatever their c-c-content might be. 

Oh, but the chill of winter makes everyone sp-sp-speak like I do!  And layers of warm clothing hide my rags!  So it’s the snow that I cherish, when I can go cr-cr-crunching across the c-courtyards of Castle Stonegruffle and, at least on those wonderful, frost-filled evenings, seem a normal g-g-g-girl.

  

Team Snow 14: RILEY COOPER, INVENTOR, MG Contemporary

Title: RILEY COOPER, INVENTOR: EMOTIONS AND LASERS

Genre: Middle Grade Contemporary

Word Count: 47,000

 My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle:

Riley would use snow, not just for his heat-seeking snowball launcher, but also as his own nature-made personal freezer to cool his lasers. And that means he wouldn’t hold his breath when mom reached for the mysterious container in the back of the refrigerator. And his parents wouldn’t ask the dreaded question heard throughout the neighborhood (they never used their inside voices) “Riley, what have you done now?” He needed a secret snow freezer because he couldn’t tell them the box contained an emotion-changing laser he invented to save their marriage. 

Team Snow 15: #MoMoLives, MG Contemporary

Title: #MoMoLives

Genre: MG Contemporary

Word Count: 53,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battler their biggest obstacle:

My main character, Tim Ellis, would find snow the most helpful. It’s great for making fake Sasquatch footprints. On the other hand, it also makes it harder for the person faking the prints to hide their own. Hot, dry weather isn’t as good, the ground gets too hard and dusty for the plywood cutouts to sink into the dirt deeply enough to make a lasting print. Snow would also make it easier to spot a brown-furred Sasquatch sneaking up on him, unless it’s got snow caked all over it from making snow angels. Don’t laugh, it could happen. 

Team Snow 16: SIXTH GRADE SECRET SERVICE, MG Humor, Mystery

Title: SIXTH GRADE SECRET SERVICE

Genre: MG, humor, mystery, adventure

Word Count: 49,000

My Main Character would use snow to battle their biggest obstacle: 

Abraham Truman, leader of the team who rescued the sixth grade class president from her captors, would once again call on Arlington Adams, who loyally served as Tech Officer during the mission. As the son of a janitor in Washington D.C., Arlington has access to the Lost and Found, a cache of misplaced spy gadgets his father recovered while cleaning various federal buildings. One such gadget, code-named The Snow-Baller, can produce 100 snowballs per second. Arlington would use these non-lethal, frozen projectiles to neutralize threats to school cabinet or ensure victory during playground snowball fights.

Contest Goodreads Lists

More and more books are being published for entries that were once in one of my many contests. There's the adorable MG from last year's Sun vs Snow, Karma Khullar's Mustache. I just heard of a two book deal for an entry from last summer's Query Kombat. That one isn't even announced yet. It's getting hard to keep track. Isn't that wonderful!

So I made a handy-dandy list! If you were in Query Kombat, New Agent, Sun versus Snow, Nightmare on Query Street or Picture Book Party and now have a publishing deal for that book, please add your book to the Goodreads' list!

From Contest to Contract

You didn't have to get your agent from the contest. Maybe your agent came afterward from a query. But once a part of the family, always a part of the family! You also don't need to have been picked by me. If any of the other hosts picked your entry--this is for you also.

Please spread the word to your friends. I'm sure you have better memories than I do. I don't want to miss anyone!

And honor our former contestants by picking up copies of their books!

Bonus for the mentors and judges:

The mentors and judges work so hard to help out with the contests. They deserve a list too! If you were a judge or mentor for any of my contests, please add your books to this list. And you know what I'm asking next--help out the writers who give back by buying their books!

Writers Who Help Writers 

So don't be shy, add your books to our lists if you qualify! And join the contest fun so you might be the next person on the list!

UPDATE: I guess authors can't add their own books to lists anymore. Nudge me on twitter and I'll add your books.