An Agent's Inbox #9

Dear Ms. Smith:

I am seeking representation for OF BLOOD AND ROSES, my 70,000-word YA fantasy retelling of the Scottish folk ballad, "Tam Lin."  I recently saw your #MSWL tweet in which you expressed an interest in YA that captures the feel of music (bands, fans, etc.), and, as a singer/songwriter with a B.A. in Music, I am hoping that my music-themed manuscript, OF BLOOD AND ROSES, will strike a chord with you (Forgive me! I couldn't resist!).

Halloween brings hoards of wasted witches, drunken demons, and masked mayhem to the city of Salem, Massachusetts, but music major Maggie Mae Carter feels bored, awash in a sucky sea of collegiate drudgery. So when she hears a voice on the radio that makes her feel more alive than she has in years, Maggie steels away to The Hall--a labyrinthine rock club in the heart of “Witch City”--to meet the young man who spins folksongs into rock ‘n’ roll perfection.

But as she is plunged into the world behind the shadows of The Hall, Maggie discovers that there’s more to singer Thomas Lynn than meets the eye, and when he oh-so-casually lets slip that he’s going to be sacrificed by a band of faery folk-rockers on Halloween night, Maggie will risk everything, going toe-to-toe with the Queen of Faerie herself, to save him. With the help of a Bostonian changeling, a Japanese fox-wife with one mother of a bad attitude, and her own penchant for folk balladry, Maggie must rescue Thomas Lynn from the fey forces that threaten him. And, if she can, she must save him from himself.

Graduating summa cum laude as a music major from Salem State University, I have garnered recognition for my fiction, my poetry, and for my songwriting.  The winner of the Boston Folk Festival's Songwriting Contest as well as the South Shore Folk Club's Ballad-Singing Contest, I have spent years studying the ballad of "Tam Lin," living with it, dreaming it, imagining my own world within the fertile lines--a landscape of sex, sacrifice, and the quest for true love.

Thank you for your time and consideration.  I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
M.P.M.

OF BLOOD AND ROSES

My father forbade me to go to The Hall that night.

I listened to him calmly--he was being quite rational, a welcome change--and then I went anyway.

Forbid is one of those words that makes me cringe; it’s too solid. When spoken, it rings like a door being shut, and I’m sick to death of closed doors. Well, you know what they say: when one door closes, open a window.

The copper beech beyond the glass shivered in the cool October air, and the glow from the streetlight gathered golden in the leaves. Hoisting open my window, I hiked up my ridiculously impractical (but deliciously scarlet) ’50s-style dress, narrowly avoided strangulation by my purse, and climbed down the tree’s sprawling, silver-barked branches. Climbed is too generous a word for what actually transpired. I slipped on the beech bark, which was smooth as polished stone, and, in an aerial display that I can only hope amused the lone squirrel watching, I landed in my father’s petunias. After retrieving one of my black leather flats from the hedges, where it had flown seemingly of its own volition, I swore to myself that next time, if there was a next time, I would dress more sensibly.

I wasn’t bold enough to swipe my father’s keys, which meant that my transportation for the night would be my bike.  It was fugly and small, but had silver handlebars curved like a bull’s horns, and I felt like a rapscallion when riding it, which was, I thought, worth all the hideousness.