Wednesday, July 27, 2011

An Agent's Inbox #9

Dear Agent:

Sixteen-year-old Jessica Jacobs is a super spy, a famous actress, and a princess.

Okay, not really, but she likes to daydream she’s all of those things and more. So when she wakes up with a medieval knight pointing his sword at her throat, Jessica thinks it’s just another daydream. Until she realizes that, 1- dude is actually causing her neck to bleed, 2- her dress is so hideous she never would have daydreamed herself into it, and 3- Zac Efron is nowhere in sight.

After pondering her sanity at length, Jessica is left with one option: ride out her time in Crazy Medieval Land until she can figure out a way home. Unfortunately, riding it out means working for the Count’s slutty daughter and doing her best to avoid Lord Pervy’s wandering hands. It sucks being the peon instead of the princess.

Enter Lord Alric, AKA: knight-in-freaking-hot-armor. It would be easy to let him protect her, but Jessica refuses to be a damsel-in-distress. She convinces him to teach her to swordfight, and amidst her inner pleas for him to take his shirt off, she falls for his selflessness and playful smile. Could time have brought them together? And if so, why are so many people conspiring to keep them apart? Like Lord Alric’s parents who betroth him to another. Or Lord Pervy who decides that if he can’t have Jessica, then no one will.

Happily ever after was so much easier in her daydreams.

Daze and Knights is an 87,000 word YA time-travel novel about an average girl facing the kind of adventures she always imagined. I have started a sequel where Jessica finds herself in Virginia during the American Revolution.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
M.S.


DAZE AND KNIGHTS

Chapter 1: Blake The Snake

He was supposed to be my knight in shining armor. My prince charming. The guy who would sweep me off my feet, treat me like a princess, all that stuff.

He wasn’t supposed to be the guy who kicked me out of his car more than four blocks from my house before speeding away without looking back.

Worst. Date. Ever.

I daydreamed about Blake Chapman asking me out since middle school. His sandy blond hair and cocky smile were enough to make me woozy. In a good way.

Too bad he didn’t actually like me. He only asked me out to make my best friend jealous. When I wouldn’t dish the dirt on Dani, pay for dinner, or give him any (in that order), he dumped me on the side of the road. Now he makes me woozy in an I-want-to-vomit kind of way.

“I can’t believe he would do that!” Dani whispered during Algebra the next day. “He always seemed like a nice guy.” She flicked her eyes to Blake who sat with his head down, texting underneath the desk.

“He probably wouldn’t do that to you,” I whispered back, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice. Plucking at the pages of my textbook, I avoided looking in his direction.

“Oh Jess, I would never go out with him. What a jerk!”

I couldn’t stop my gaze from straying towards him. “Yeah.”  He looked up then, noticed me looking, and smirked. Crap.

9 comments:

kfillius said...

GREAT title! Great voice. Sounds like lots of fun. I'm not much into time travel, yet I'm still interested.

Leigh Ann said...

Oh, SO cute!

Query: I think this needs to be tighter. And a suggestion: I would swoon if "Happily ever after was so much easier in her daydreams." was your OPENING line. That would rule, and hook me right away.

First page: Really nice writing, great voice, great sense of character and her relationship with BF. Well done.

Hope this helps! Best of luck! :)

amber said...

UH ... I think I must have this book. My email is amplante@gmail.com -- please PLEASE email me when I can preorder it.

If I were giving the award, you'd win. Even over mine. Well... maybe we'd tie :-)

Lynn Lindquist said...

Love love love this. Dang it (LOL) cuz mine's a contemp YA entry too!
Seriously, it's such a cute premise and voice, and I could totally see a series off it. Best of luck!

Robbin said...

Stand in line - you have my vote, too. Great premise, voice, and cute as ever. The only suggestion: you use the word woozy 2x - close together - change one. Otherwise, perfect :) Good luck!

MarcyKate said...

Love the query, totally hooked. Very happy to see the voice in the pages and the query match up. It shows you have a nice control over your story. the only thing I'd suggest for the first page is grounding the reader in the scene in the first paragraph. We don't find out until half way down the page that she's sitting in algebra class and I found that a bit jarring.

Awesome start - good luck!

Ru said...

This is seriously so cute and funny, I really want to read it.

The Agent said...

M.S. - Admittedly, I'm not the biggest fan of medieval settings. However, I think you have a clever premise here. But, what made me stop reading is Jessica herself, who didn't strike me as a strong female role model. Without you saying she "refuses to be a damsel," there's nothing here to show me she's not. She daydreams about pretty dresses, wants to be treated like a princess, and laments that her horrible date wasn't her "knight in shining armor." Also, I have a problem with the word "slutty," so that was an immediate turn off for me and made me dislike Jessica. I know that wasn't your intention, but word choices go a long way. In this case, I'd pass based on the character, but I think the story itself is cute.

Anonymous said...

LOVE your voice. I too was thrown by 'slutty.' But that's all I got. Good luck:)