Monday, October 1, 2012

GUTGAA SPP #24 - Warder

Warder
PNR (Adult)
107,000

Query:

At twenty-eight, Mona Kubrek finally fits in when she’s chosen to be Warder, a job where she helps keep magic hidden from the human world and mortals safe from those who work it. The position highlights her skills, or lack there of, as only elves that can’t create their own spells but can manipulate others’ magic are picked for the task. Life is pretty good until she accidentally springs, then evades, a death trap. Now she’s dodging spellbound shifters intent on finding her and dealing with her body’s attraction to the half-elf investigating the destruction left in her pursuers wake.


Cart Dupree wants only to find the culprit behind the recent bridge collapse, do his job, and get back to his pack. From the start of the investigation, Mona dogs his steps. She’s reckless, especially when she puts herself and other lives in danger by jumping in feet first without a thought to her safety. But’s not her actions which get shifters killed, it’s the madman who sends them after her and spells them to get Mona or die.


Tacitly agreeing to ignore their mutual attraction, Mona and Cart band together to solve the case. The only information they have about the magic user who’s sending the shifters after Mona, and thus decimating the local Were pack, are cryptic messages from a mythical being. As each successive attempt to kill the pair comes closer to succeeding, and the death toll for shifters rises, the two race to decipher the clues before they become the next victims.

Warder is a stand alone novel with series potential.


First 150 Words:
Mona's right elbow throbbed with pain and both knees were stiff with a heavy cushion of swelling. Thank the goddess her elf blood meant she'd healed some already. She'd felt alarmingly like a human hockey puck a couple of hours ago. Now she was just bruised, battered and effing sore.


Which really sucked because her cell was blaring the military march she'd thought was 'fun' a couple of days ago. The idea of moving was far from appealing but she couldn't in conscious avoid the call. Too many people depended on her to help provide protection against spells gone awry.  Gritting her teeth she pushed against the couch with her good arm and wiggled to the edge. The pain wasn't too bad, slightly better than she'd expected.


The ringing stopped.  


She sat, ass half on the couch glaring at the phone. Just after ten in the morning and today was already ‘that kind of day.'

6 comments:

Slave to the Muse said...

I enjoyed your query and your opening. I like the Warder premise, but there were just a couple of things in the query that you might want to take a second look at. This line felt awkward to me: "The position highlights her skills, or lack there of, as only elves that can’t create their own spells but can manipulate others’ magic are picked for the task."
And when you used the word "But's" instead of "but it's", it threw me out of the story.
I'll be voting later so check back to see if there's another comment from me! Good work!

Unknown said...

Ack, missed that type 'but it's'. Off to correct that and see about reworking that sentence (again, of course!).

Thanks for the feedback!

Unknown said...

Typo. Sigh, apparently they are rampant today.

Manchee said...

I really wanted to vote for this because the premise is awesome. I'm having trouble getting past the typos though. There are a couple I saw (there of and "in conscious" where it should be "in good conscience").

Unknown said...

Thank you for the comment! I will run this past a different set of eyes next time (and I think I can revise before the small press official pitch but I didn't put my best foot forward and I understand I missed the opportunity).

Rose Cardinal said...

YOU HAVE MY VOTE!

An elf who hides magic from the world, what's not to love? The query could use a bit of tightening but the opening is excellent.

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