Team Krista #2: MYSTIC COOKING

Title: MYSTIC COOKING

Genre: Upper MG fantasy

Word count: 78,000

Query:

At fourteen, Lailu is the youngest chef to graduate from Chef’s Academy in over three hundred years, and she’s not about to let anything get in the way of her dream: opening a high-class restaurant that specializes in cooking mystical beasts.

With her new steam-powered stove, Lailu is positive her restaurant will be a huge success. Sure, she had to borrow a ton of money from Mr. Boss, the meanest loan shark around, but she knows her profits will more than make up for it. Unfortunately, her obnoxious school rival Greg decides to open a competing restaurant, and with his charm, good looks, and aristocratic background, he soon has a full house--while Lailu’s place remains a dining graveyard.

When Mr. Boss pushes up the due date of Lailu’s loan, she realizes she’s bitten off more than she can chew. Lailu has battled dragons, krakens, griffons, and all sorts of delicious and dangerous beasts, but she’s never faced anyone as ruthless as Mr. Boss. With her deadline approaching, she’s forced to turn to the one person who can help. Obnoxious or not, Greg is almost as good a chef as Lailu, and it will take all of their combined skills to get her out of the stew she’s in. After all, Mr. Boss always gets what’s owed to him, one way or another.

First page:

Lailu flipped a large chef’s knife end over end, scowling at the row of onions pinned to her far wall. She could have taken on another kraken or even a hydra right then, but this waiting--this waiting was killing her.

"Don't worry," she told her remaining batch of onions, "it will only hurt for a second." As she selected a sweet yellow one, the bell above her front door chimed.

Lailu whipped around eagerly, the onion toppling to the floor. She straightened her fluffy white chef’s hat. “Welcome to Mystic Cooking. Our special today is…” Her eyes flickered to the man looming in her doorway. "Oh. It's you."

For all that she was barely over five feet tall, Mr. Boss, “call me Victor,” was not much taller, but his back was straight, and his cane seemed more like a threatening prop than a tool. He looked like he might be in his sixties or seventies, his long gray hair streaked through with white and oiled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. She'd heard the rumors, of course, that he was actually two hundred and six and that he bathed in the blood of young dragons every month to slow his aging. Lailu wasn’t sure she bought that; she knew how hard it was to kill a dragon.

Mr. Boss glanced at the line of onions pinned to the wall, then turned, taking in the spotless and very empty dining room. “Busy, I see."