An Agent's Inbox #2

Dear Ms. Testerman:

I'm excited to query the agent of both Ransom Riggs and Maureen Johnson. Your list is a wonderful mix of contemporary, suspense and fantasy and I hope SAVING ANDROMEDA, an 85,000-word YA contemporary mystery based on a true story, would be a fit.

On the day Emma Hudson graduates from high school, a mysterious note leads to three shocking revelations: Emma was adopted. Her biological father is internationally famous rocker, Michael Stryker. And her birth mother is convicted killer Andromeda Bain, who has sent Emma a lifetime's worth of letters from prison.

Emma ditches her summer job to meet her parents and track down her roots. As she travels from her home in southeast Alaska to California and Nova Scotia, Emma discovers a family tree loaded with unknown relatives, hidden relationships and simmering feuds. Andromeda's letters reveal her passionate romance with Michael and raise questions about her murder confession nineteen years ago. Emma's hunt to discover who Andromeda was really protecting clashes with her new family, who'd prefer to sweep these secrets under the braided kitchen rug. Finding the truth is as elusive as filling a jar with fog, and the real killer is watching Emma's every move.

My family comes from Nova Scotia, where secrets shroud and family trees tangle. A second cousin told me the story of this murder, which occurred in 1960s Nova Scotia. Rumors along the shore hinted that the lights we saw at the cottage down the road were the ghost of the murdered man. I hope SAVING ANDROMEDA reflects some of this intrigue. For thirteen years, I was a journalist for papers in Minnesota, Washington, and the Anchorage Daily News. I'm now a teacher and co-host a news blog covering my small Alaskan town.

The first 250 words are below. Thanks for reading,

M.W.


SAVING ANDROMEDA

I think I knew long before discovering the letters that my real name wasn’t actually Emma Hudson.

There were the repeat dreams of answering to a different name, of looking in a mirror and seeing someone else’s face. For years, I’d dreamt of drowning, struggling to breathe in a body that wasn’t mine, of wandering through my house to find room after room hidden under floor boards or in closets that unfolded like paper dolls.

I just figured they were the normal dreams of a teenager. If you’d asked me who I was in the weeks leading up to high school graduation, my answer would’ve been a list: basketball player, high school senior, daughter of Jud and Claire, resident of Resurrection, Alaska and Sam’s girlfriend.

The problem was, only some of that was true.

The mystery note came in the mail the week of final exams, along with a pile of late college brochures and other junk I’d been getting since my junior year. Mom put it all on my desk but it wasn’t until graduation day that I had time to sort through it.

The envelope looked like the others with my name written in neat handwriting across the front. I opened the flap and a piece of folded paper slipped out.

Ask your mother about Andromeda. Open the green chest in the basement. It’s yours.

It wasn’t signed. There was no return address.