Katie Hamstead's Blog, page 10

Son of a Pitch Entry: Jinxx Relinkerys is a Liar and a Thief

Title: Jinxx Relinkerys is a Liar and a Thief
Category and Genre: YA Fantasy
Word Count: 79,000

Query:
A girl on crutches doesn’t look like a hero, especially when everybody is convinced she’s a liar and a thief. Fourteen-year-old math genius Jinxx must prove them wrong.
Jinxx works as an apprentice mage to keep her family from starving, but can’t tell anyone without being accused of witchcraft. The demands of her powerful mentor make it hard for her to spend time at choir, her connection to a community full song, dance, and duende—the sometimes dark soul of flamenco.
When she’s kicked out of choir after she’s framed for stealing an expensive hymnal, she can’t risk losing her job by telling her mentor. The only clue she has is a cypher that even when decoded makes little sense. As she’s framed for even worse crimes, she and her scandal-loving best friend must discover whose behind the cypher and stop them. Even as they find more evidence, nobody will believe a thief. If she can’t convince them, the next crime she “commits” will send her whole family to the gallows…and that might not be the worst of it.

First 250 Words:
If one of the choir girls was around, I’d beg her to go fetch my brothers for me, but the only thing about is the heat and a flock of misguided pelicans who don’t realize it’s siesta. The temple bells struck at least twenty minutes ago. I need to get home and can’t without my brothers. When I told my them I needed to talk to Lady Sesedo, I meant just a few minutes. It’s my first solo, so I wanted to make sure I knew what part to practice. They knew there wasn’t time for the beach.
I put my math text in my satchel, pick up my crutches, and walk down the street towards the beach path. It feels like all the white walls make the siesta-time sun even more unbearable. I wish those pelicans would fly over me for a few moments of shade. At the least the trail to the beach has that, even if I can’t walk it without tripping. The stupid path cuts through a thicket of scrub bushes, wild olive trees, and thistles.
The temple bells aren’t a clock. They haven’t changed since I last looked at them. That doesn’t make me any less late. Mom needs me to help with the dress we’re making for Doñita Promysed. Mom told Doña Daskeryna we’d finish it by next prayer day. She’s paying us a big bonus to deliver it before Day Su Maligu. To get it done, we’re working through the heat of siesta and burning candles at night.

Son of a Pitch Entry: Ultramarinus

Title: ULTRAMARINUS
Genre: YA Fantasy
Word count: 76000
Query:
17-year-old nonbinary Py hunts for a cure long after everyone else has given up. Undines have the magical power to heal and create new life from water, but no one in their underwater city can heal Py’s beloved elder. Py’s last hope for a cure is to find the Spring, the mythical source of all undine life. Few undines know the Spring’s location, but everyone has heard about the dangerous journey to find it. Risking death, Py sets off across the ocean to find the mysterious Spring.

Woven through Py’s tale is the story of Catalpa, seventy years before. After an attack on their tribe, a young Catalpa goes to find the rebel headquarters and discovers Makar, the mythical fire god and rebellion leader. Catalpa poses as a rebel to learn more about Makar’s mysterious experiments. When they discover that Makar is stealing undines’ souls, Catalpa must rescue them all from the malicious fire god.

When Makar comes back for vengeance seventy years later and disrupts Py’s journey, Py discovers the source of their elder’s illness: the wound from a failed attempt by Makar to steal the elder’s soul. While Makar and a band of soul-stealing monsters scour the ocean looking for Py’s elder, Py will have to finish the mission to find the Spring and defeat Makar before their elder’s soul is gone forever.

First 250:
The Spring Culters forbid me from warning my elder about the attack. I did it anyway.
It didn’t matter. My first betrayal was enough that my elder didn’t believe me this time. They didn’t believe me even as the magma came rolling down the mountain, hissing and blackening in the cold water. It overtook the houses at the edge of the city before anyone knew what was happening.
They didn’t believe me when the fish fled the city in a thick wave, and the undines abandoned all unity, screaming and swimming for their lives through the roiling water. They didn’t believe me that I saw a Rebel watching us from the top of the mountain. I’m sure it was a Rebel, though their skin looked strangely blue in the darkness.
They didn’t believe me, choking on the ash in the water, even though there were no volcanoes near our city. A natural disaster, they had called it. Our beautiful coral city, hundreds of years old, destroyed in minutes. Not natural. They didn’t believe me about the Rebels and their violence, even as that violence boiled through their city.
There are three sides in this fight, and I’m still not sure if I am on the right side. I know which one is the wrong side. But my other two choices are less clear. The Spring Culters, the antithesis of the Rebels. Or my elder, the chief of our tribe, trying to be gray in a fight that seemed black and white to me.
But I knew what they both wanted, and I would do whatever it took. I would find the leader of the Rebellion, drag them back here if I had to, if that’s what it took to win back my elder’s trust.

Son of a Pitch Entry: Liked

TITLE: LIKED
Category and Genre: Adult Contemporary
Word Count: 75,000

Query:
I killed him. My three-ton Range Rover embedded his paper-thin jogger body into the concrete Jersey wall on Highway 71. I stared at his closed casket. An open one wasn’t an option. They say don’t text and drive. They were right. People on social media used every opportunity to remind me daily. I’ve learned many new words. Few are kind.

Probation, suspended license, community service, and a marathon. My lawyers sold the judge on a progressive sentence that included my out-of-shape middle-aged body running a local marathon dedicated to my victim. His family insisted I carry his ashes while competing in the race. If I don’t finish the race, I go to jail on a parole violation. No pressure.

I stole his running journal while apologizing to his niece about the accident. Petty theft was nothing compared to manslaughter. I wanted tips on running, not to find my soul mate.

Six months is all I have to fall out of love with a dead man, fall back in love with my husband, and get my body into shape so I can run a marathon and quiet the mean girls on social media who I once thought of as friends.


First 250 Words:
This is my first funeral.
Glass half-full, it’s not mine.
Glass half-empty, I killed the guy nestled inside the closed casket.
Obliterated may be a better description than killed.
But here I stand.
Thirty-six.
Two kids even Satan wouldn’t admit to fathering.
Squeezed into size twelve skinny pants riding so far up my ass they should have a canary to make sure the air is breathable. The sweat rolling off my body like a high-speed assembly line isn’t helping.
My hips beg for a fourteen.
Who am I kidding? Sixteen.
Who has their wake catered in the funeral home? Judging by the size of this spread, these pants are probably going to burst before I leave. With any luck, someone’s gonna stroll through those doors wearing sweat pants ready to tackle the giant seafood platter. I can only hope.
Anything to help me vanish.
I shimmy between two tables displaying flowered condolence baskets. The pink and white roses shield me from all the eyes entering the room. I’d hide here until the end of the wake if the smell of roses didn’t fill the back of my throat with the shrimp cocktail already testing my 12s.
Even on the wrong side of thirty, this wouldn’t be the worst place in the world if I hadn’t killed the guy eternally sleeping under the closed mahogany casket.
Involuntary Vehicular Manslaughter. Court’s words. Not mine.
“Stupid woman reading a text while driving a Range Rover”— would’ve been more accurate.

Son of a Pitch Entry: Stars in a Bucket

Title:Stars in a bucket
Category and Genre: NA CR
Word Count: 92,000


Query:
Life teaches 18-yr old Shana Matthews from small-town Mistyview Falls a few things: falling in love can be overwhelming; being a good person is negligible; repayment for kindness is often painful wrath. But her toughest lesson will be trying to stay afloat after she’s hurled into the deep end, and that with weights attached to both feet.

Shana's settled into taking care of her father and three half-brothers, when-almost overnight-she finds herself at extreme, opposite spectrums. She's happy and head over heels for Casey, and crippled with fear as Lonnie's (her brother) aggressive outbursts towards her increases. Soon Shana is torn between love and her familial responsibilities; and when she chooses her heart, she pays the ultimate and most brutal price for the decision. It drives her to abscond from Mistyview Falls... away from everything she'd ever known and cherished.
Almost 7 years later, Casey happens to cross her path. Despite the enduring love, Shana considers her demons too profound and resists his advances. Despite her obvious desperation to have him leave, Casey is determined to win her back. And in staying, he uncovers the harrowing truths which haunt her, and it's unfathomable. Both their worlds are once more upended as they're faced with the most daunting decisions of their lives... all in the name of love.


First 250 words:
Changes…

I remember that I once read something I had thought so beautiful at the time.
Things change, people don’t.
I am now unable to recall where exactly I had seen it, but the four little words had offered such a dedicated promise that it had etched itself upon my hopeful heart, that unforgettable summer I turned 19. I had held onto that assurance, no… I had clung to it with such desperation like a drowning person would a life-raft, just waiting for the day that my circumstances would change.
I was my mother’s daughter; always-doing-something-good-for-someone-else-Shana. I was altruistic and everybody knew it. And I suppose for me, having too good a heart turned out to be a bad thing. I had believed that in reward for my kind nature, my life would turn around for the better. Rather foolishly, I had settled my faith in Karma. I was too young and innocent back then. So ridiculously naïve. Harsh reality was standing on the side-lines, just out of view, waiting for its’ chance to give me a wake-up call.
Things change… people don’t?
What a crock. Soon I would know better-I learned that the hard way. The worst way possible, which you would never even want to imagine! The one day I had stood on the jetty, overlooking the lake and I thought that I had never seen a sight more spectacularly beautiful. The grass and trees were lush and green, the blue sky clear and the water sparkling.

Son of a Pitch Entry: White Soul

Title: White Soul
Category and Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 90,000

Query:
Amelia Walker is murdered in a mugging gone wrong.

But before her teenage corpse starts to rot—a Soul Reaper offers a deal. She can have her life back, if she agrees to become a Soul Reaper—living as a mortal, enforcing Death’s rules to maintain the balance between the living and the dead. Breathing again would be reason enough to take the deal, but it also means an eternity of servitude.

Seizing the opportunity to live again, Amy learns that her death was no accident, and that a banished Reaper group is to blame. They have plans to murder more innocent souls, including Amy’s mom, who has apparently always been a talented Reaper. At the same time, the group offers a chance of freedom from Death’s chains.

All Reapers serve Lady Death, blessed with Her mark and ghost powers. Disobeying Her means betrayal, severe banishment, and a painful removal of all Reaper abilities. These rebels seek to change Death’s brutal laws, and no matter what they did to Amy, they have her complete attention.


First 250 Words:
Why was that boy following her?
Why wouldn’t he just leave?
Amy ran with all she had toward the 77th Street station. The plastic bag with her brother’s Christmas gift bounced against her chest, lungs stinging and breath heavy. She dodged people as they watched her.
She turned a street corner, taking a shortcut and running past what she thought was the New York Society Library. After another minute of running, she stopped, bending forward, hands on her knees. Slowly her hammering heart calmed down, and so did the adrenaline in her veins, the snow falling on her face helping to ease the heat in her body.
The subway station was not far, but her tired legs didn’t care. They wouldn’t move. “C’mon.” She huffed, straightening. “Almost there.”
She didn’t find the boy in black. He wasn’t anywhere insight. Minutes earlier, it didn’t matter where she looked at or how much she ran, he would always be there, distant, watching. But not now. Lost him. Good. She had turned left and right countless times while running, randomly following sidewalks on streets full of falling snow.
The street was empty. The wind whistled around her, and the cold clung to her skin as she breathed, fog escaping her lips with every exhale. She sighed.
The street she’d stopped on wasn’t one she recognized—a residential zone, filled with two-story buildings. Lights gleamed from the windows of the homes. Lampposts gave off a smooth, pale illumination in the dark.

Son of a Pitch Entry: Fountains, Wishes, and Dead Things

Title: Fountains, Wishes, and Dead Things
Category and Genre: YA Dark Fantasy/Horror
Word Count: 72,000

Query:
Desperate to save her terminally ill sister, fifteen-year-old Del blindly believes the words of a dying man who speaks of a fountain with the ability to heal. If lore holds true, she can exchange dead bodies for access to the fountain to save her sister and her recently deceased father. Undaunted by its steep price of human sacrifice Del amasses a pile of corpses.

Del and her family travel to the walled city of Eternum, but once inside Del learns it’s a trap. The only sacrifice the townsfolk want is her younger sister, and they expect Del to kill her. When she refuses, the townsfolks banish Del into the nearby forest occupied by Neffers, beastly protectors of the fountain. These imprisoned once-human creatures survive on the blood of sick children like Del’s sister.

To save her family, Del needs the Neffers’ help, but success means freeing the Neffers to feast upon the sick children of the world. Doing nothing means sacrificing the last of her humanity and letting her sister succumb to cancer. In a battle where the line of monsters and men is blurred, Del must determine how many lives the person you love most is worth.


First 250 Words:
The toe tag on the decapitated body read: IF FOUND, CALL (512)576-3038, so Del pulled out her iPhone.

The burning Texas sun played spotlight for the headless body starring center stage.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Del said, circling the shirtless decaying corpse. She maintained a perimeter outside the buzzing flies and fluid soaked ground but breathed easier knowing it wouldn’t answer. “I’ve seen other dead people, you know.”

Seen. Created. Collected. Same difference.

Del spied a turkey vulture gliding in a copycat pattern around the body. “Get the hell outta here! He’s mine!” she fumed. She snatched a piece of gray limestone from the dirt and hurled the rock skyward. The irritated vulture voiced its displeasure before settling into the field’s lone oak tree masquerading as a kickstand for her ten-speed bike. For now, fifteen-year-old Del owned her prize uncontested.

Dead bodies were a one-way ticket to life in jail for most, not a bloody prerequisite to salvation.

Del chewed her last unbroken nail to a jagged nub before dialing. She figured most people would be afraid to call, but they weren’t in her situation. She needed to find a cure for cancer, like yesterday.

The option to call the cops had long since passed. They would canvas the field. Talking her way out of one dead body seemed plausible, but not a half-dozen. While her underground fort kept them out of sight, their putrid scent would undoubtedly betray her.

Son of a Pitch Entry: Reruns of My Life

Title: Reruns of My Life
Category and Genre: YA Contemporary Romance
Word Count: 100,000

Query:
Seventeen-year-old Agnes is legally dead. After a severe beating from her mother, she faked her own suicide... four years ago. Now, under a new name and with an adopted family, Agnes, now Blaire, returns to her hometown to face her past and the one person who gave her the will to keep living; her best friend Parker.
Her biological father returns when the police inform him that she still lives, but Agnes struggles to reconcile the real him with the lies her mother brainwashed her to believe, especially since he has a "replacement" daughter with his new wife.
But Parker believes she's dead and, after Agnes' significant physical changes, he sees similarities to the girl he once knew, but that's all. Although, other people are starting to piece things together, especially because she bears a strong resemblance to her mother when she was Agnes' age. Each time someone questions her, the trauma from her mother's abuse sets off flashbacks and panic attacks.
Agnes knows she has to tell Parker the truth soon before he realizes or someone else tells him, but the more she falls in love with him, the harder the truth is to reveal. She broke him once, the truth might just make it permanent.

First 250 Words:
Four years. Although the time seemed like an eternity, it didn’t feel long enough. How could these people all be the same when I had changed so dramatically?

Although now at high school, the same girls were the pretty popular girls, the same girls were the cheerleaders, some more loose, others more uptight. The jocks were their same stupid selves, just… more. They still stared at girls’ chests, they still tried to get glimpses up their skirts or down their shirts.

As I passed through the main gate, their gazes followed me, the new girl. The guys assessing how worth their time I might be, the girls trying to decide whether they should be my frenemies or an open foe.

I held my chin up and kept walking. If the past four years taught me nothing else, it taught me how to be tough. They never knew a tough version of me.

With a class list in hand, I headed toward the senior lockers. The same groups remained intact; the nerds, the druggies, the outdated skaters, the arty kids, the wholesome head-in-the-sand kids. I recognized every single one, and none of them had changed their groups. They were all set in their ways, and their ways worked for them. I couldn’t blame them for that. But I’d never been part of any of those groups. I never fit their molds.

A slight twinge of fear struck me as I opened my locker. What if someone did recognize me? What would they say?

Son of a Pitch Entry: Dream a Little Dream of Me

Title: Dream a Little Dream of Me
Category and Genre: YA/Magical Realism/Time-travel
Word Count: 86,000
Query:
It’s been a year since sixteen-year-old Ellie Barrett’s mother died, and she still can’t move on with her life. She’s pulled away from her two best friends and her once-beloved Aunt Jane who’s now her guardian. She only talks to Nate, the loner guy at high school with a mysterious past, and doesn’t see her life ever changing until she wishes on a shooting star to get her mother back. And she does, just not as she imagined.

Now, instead of sleeping, she travels to 1976 when her mother was sixteen-year-old Trix. Being with her mom is a dream-come-true—almost. Ellie loves Trix and adores her aunt at twelve and her grandmother, but Trix isn’t a mom-substitute and time-travel has its downsides. Besides never sleeping, Ellie vanishes when she travels from one time to the other. In the past she’s healthy, but in her present Ellie is physically falling apart.

Time-travel is killing Ellie, so she must choose—if she can—life in the past with her sixteen-year-old mother or life without her mother at all.

First 250 Words:
The breeze here on top of the Empire State Building gusts Mom’s soft hippie skirt behind her, her black and silver hair intertwining with mine. “Can anything be better than this?” she asks.

We pose like figureheads on a ship, arms outstretched, hugging all of Manhattan, the car lights streaming like rivers far below.

I laugh. “When did heights stop bothering you?”

Mom wraps her arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “When I died, my sweet.”

My alarm went off, the droning buzz erasing Mom’s voice. I hit it, needing to smack something. To break something. My heart pounded, my eyes teary.

Another Mom dream where she leaves me.

It wasn’t even a true dream. Aunt Jane and Joe took Cassie, Serena, and me when we were fourteen to the Empire State Building. Mom’s fear of heights was her excuse not to come with us. Later, she admitted that she was in too much pain and exhausted.

That day, as Aunt Jane told Joe to take pictures of us, Cassie, Serena and I—poising for one of our traditional best-friends photos—pretended we were Jack and Rose from Titantic, laughing like demented witches as the wind blew our hair into each other’s face, our arms open wide.

I took that picture off my bulletin board a year ago; only Mom photos allowed.

I curled into a ball under my comforter. I didn’t know which was worse—these great dreams where Mom is herself or the ones like last night’s

Son of a Pitch Entry: Derek Hyde knows Spooky When He Sees It

Title: DEREK HYDE KNOWS SPOOKY WHEN HE SEES IT
Category and Genre: MG, Paranormal
Word Count: 41,000
Query:Derek Hyde isn’t tingling with undiluted joy that the spookiest old mansion in town is about to become the Hyde Funeral Home & Used Coffin Outlet. Especially since he has to live there with his adoptive mortician parents, Jack and Formalda.Of course, being driven in the family hearse to his first day at middle school doesn’t exactly add whipped cream to his broccoli.As if things couldn't get more horrific, an evil classmate named Nussbaum attacks him in the cafeteria with a plate of beef stroganoff. Seems this kid loved living in the old mansion himself, but got yanked out after accidentally blowing up his own mom and dad. With his chemistry set. Now his dead parents are stuck as ghosts and Nussbaum is a foster kid stuck on revenge, vowing to get even with Derek’s family for taking over his haunted home.If twelve-year-old Derek can't live in a nice place—preferably without any blood-curdling apparitions that scare the pants off him and a classmate bent on ensuring he doesn't make it to thirteen—he'll have to run away. Far, far away.
First 250 Words:There are far worse things in life than being raised in a funeral home. For example, you could… um…Okay, here’s one. You could have your brains eaten alive and slurped down by cranky, overworked zombies who haven’t had their morning coffee.Or how about this? You could be stuffed into a spin dryer at Leo’s Laundromat & Hideous Stain Removal Service and set to Extra Dry/Huge Load.But Derek wasn’t eaten and he definitely wasn’t spin dried, either. Just driven to the narcoleptic town of Littleburp in the family car (actually, an old yellow school bus), and then to a really unfortunate and grossly undesirable address: 1313 Slimeytoes Lane. As the bus splashed its way through a beautifully timed thunderstorm on the worst day of Derek’s life (so far), his mom and dad worked at keeping his spirits up by singing their favorite, most embarrassing song: Poopy Head, Poopy Head, Don’t You Be a Poopy Head.It didn’t help.It was bad enough his adoptive parents dragged Derek out of his seventh grade class and away from all his friends to limp across the country in a broken-down school bus on this Journey to Nowhere. Much worse was the notion that they were about to move him into a spooky old mansion they planned to convert into a funeral home.You see, his parents were funeral directors. Morticians. Undertakers.On this appropriately stormy autumn day, noisy brakes slowed them to a squealing stop in front of their new home.

Son of a Pitch Entry: Counting Perfect

Title: COUNTING PERFECTCategory and Genre: MG Contemporary
Word Count: 47,000
Query:Convinced she's a mistake Mom made thirteen years ago, Zinnia Clark believes meeting Dad could erase that. When her middle school announces a father-daughter dance, the obsessive eighth grader decides Mystery Dad must be her date.There are only two problems. One, Zinnia’s never met him and has no idea how to find him. Two, her diverse band of friends have no plans to be part of a dance that excludes more than includes, and they plan to boycott it. Zinnia would join their efforts if she hadn't just discovered a Back to the Future lunchbox with a hidden treasure: Mom's high school diary. Distracted while looking for someone who might not be there to find, reading the diary raises her anxiety and leaves her unprepared for Isabella Watson, the wicked student council dance chair.When the girl learns about plans to ruin her dance, she targets Zinnia who must choose between helping her friends or chasing a ghost.All Zinnia wants is to complete her perfect family and live a life free of anxiety and mysteries. She has no idea why Isabella’s out to get her or what Mom’s hiding inside the diary. If only Zinnia understood not all secrets are meant to be shared. If she doesn’t return the diary and confront Isabella, she could be making the biggest mistake of all.
First 250 Words:A girl can never have too many erasers, which is why seven square ones line the top of my desk. It’s not like I make tons of mistakes. I simply want to be prepared. Mistakes happen.My little brother can rave all he wants about the magic of a blue ink pen, I’m all about the pencil and its temporariness. Besides, the mystique of permanent ink wanes in middle school where mistakes happen all the time. This isn’t anything I tell my brother. I don’t want to take away his optimism.Brushing back a layer of curls, I feign attention at morning announcements with the rest of my bleary eyed classmates. Over the intercom, the principal spouts a laundry list of events for the week...club meetings, club cancellations, volleyball try-outs, spirit days.The speaker crackles as he fumbles to turn off his mic, so I adjust my erasers in preparation for note-taking.“Settle down, take out your lists of research topics.” Our teacher likes to partner us based on interests not friendships, which means I actually get a partner.That is, if anyone else finds the town library as interesting as me. It’s my number one choice.“I believe Miss Watson has a special bulletin about an upcoming eighth grade-only event.” Our teacher claps his hands to re-capture our attention. “Straighten up for your student body activities chair, and count yourselves lucky to hear her announcement before the rest of the school.”Isabella Watson is never one I count myself lucky about. Ever.