QK Round 2: Meet Me at Lake Nevaeh vs. These Little Earthquakes
Title: Lost Inside Her
Nickname: Meet Me at Lake Nevaeh
Word count: 71,000
Genre: YA Thriller
Query:
For as long as seventeen-year-old Violet can remember, she’s had a voice in her head she calls Gabby. She’s her best friend. And to Violet, she’s real. But to her doctors and parents, the voice is a mysterious mental aberration they’ve tried treating for years with meds and therapy. But nothing’s worked.
Usually playful and carefree, Gabby’s visits are now filling Violet with unexplainable fear, and even making her dizzy and nauseous. Worried they’ll put her away for good, Violet keeps Gabby’s troubles to herself. When Neil joins her English class and they connect in church, his down-to-earth, gentle nature draws her closer. So close, she trusts him with her secret. And he’s the first to believe her.
But Gabby doesn't trust Neil. She rebels, causing blackouts and strange bruises that land Violet in the hospital, and now they want to send her for long-term testing. Feeling betrayed by everyone, Violet runs away with Neil to his reservation, where his grandfather performs a shamanic ritual. In a trance-like vision, Violet enters one of her own body’s cells and witnesses how her atoms’ electrons link her—through a long-distance magnetic force—to another person. A real person. It explains her blackouts and bruises. They’re really Gabby’s. And Gabby is in big trouble.
When police arrest Neil for harboring a runaway, Violet escapes in his truck. Now on her own to save Gabby, all Violet has to work with are cryptic clues about Gabby’s location and Neil’s intelligent dog. If Violet can’t save her, she not only jeopardizes her own safety, she risks losing her lifelong friend and the first guy who ever believed in her.
First 250:
Three days since I’d secretly quit taking my meds. Or was it four? This might have ranked as the stupidest thing I’d ever done. Huddled in the back seat of Dad’s SUV, I forced my eyes open. Swirling gray clouds dumped more rain onto the street, already flooded from a week of late-September storms.
That spot where Gabby lived in my head was empty. For now, anyway. After all her drama, insisting I “stop the drugs,” she hadn’t even popped in since I’d quit. Maybe it was better that way. Because just thinking about how weird she’d been acting lately made me sweat all over. Staring out the window, tears filled my eyes, blurring the falling rain. I didn’t even know my best friend anymore. I almost wished she’d never visit me again.
A gust whipped fat drops against the windshield, forcing Dad to slow down and lean forward. We crawled through the downpour and turned into the mini mart’s lot. While Dad ran in for drinks, Mom flipped down the visor’s mirror and applied that bright-red lipstick I hated. She saw me looking at her. “You still mad at me?”
“I was tired. I didn’t mean to yell.” I’d swear she was more concerned about being yelled at than why I was so upset when she woke me for church. I’d barely slept all night, and I really wanted to tell her why. Tell Dad. Tell someone.
Gabby’s mantra echoed: Keep it inside, where it’s safe with me and you.
VERSUS
Title: Where the Waves Go
Entry Nickname: These Little Earthquakes
Word Count: 64K
Genre: YA Contemporary
Query:
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Elliott has always run away from life. She drinks to escape her depression, fools around with guys to ease her loneliness, and hangs out in cemeteries to avoid the living. After she's dumped by the first boy she ever loved, Charlie's drinking spirals out of control. Her mother kicks her out of the house, so Charlie leaves her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, for the city of her dreams: Los Angeles.
Charlie is ready for a fresh start—the only problem is she has no money and no plan. Unwilling to go back to the place where everyone knows her past, Charlie sleeps in a lifeguard tower on the Venice Beach Boardwalk, sharing the space with a stray cat and a schizophrenic homeless man. Life on the streets is harder than anything she’s faced before, and she turns to drinking once again to numb her pain.
Fortunately, Charlie meets Les, an awkward 16-year-old gamer. Charlie crashes with Les when she gets sick, and they quickly develop feelings for each other. But without a job or place to live, Charlie doesn't have long to decide whether she should go back to Ann Arbor and face her addiction or stay in L.A. where she has nothing...except for Les.
First 250:
The familiar sting slides down my throat as I take a sip of whiskey. It’s sharp and hollow at the same time. I don’t wince when I feel it, not anymore. Instead, I find it soothing, knowing the relief that the sting will ultimately bring me.
The music is loud, some rap song I’ve never heard before. Stacey Harrington stands right in front of me but might as well be a thousand miles away. She’s saying something about the new exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, trying to sound intelligent and cultured. Normally, I would force a smile and tell her about the time I went to the Louvre in Paris. I’d talk about how tiny the Mona Lisa is in real life and pretend to be sophisticated and discerning, despite the fact that Paris is the only foreign city I’ve ever been to and it was back when I was ten.
But I don’t feel like playing that game. I haven’t felt like it in a while.
Stacey’s blonde hair is up in the highest ponytail imaginable, and over the top of her head, I see someone step through the front door. Suddenly, I don’t hear the music anymore. I don’t see Stacey, or smell the scent of booze and mildew, or feel the plastic cup gripped in my hand. Everything around me halts to a stop.
It’s Trevor.
His dark brown eyes scan the room like he’s looking for someone, the way he used to look for me.
Nickname: Meet Me at Lake Nevaeh
Word count: 71,000
Genre: YA Thriller
Query:
For as long as seventeen-year-old Violet can remember, she’s had a voice in her head she calls Gabby. She’s her best friend. And to Violet, she’s real. But to her doctors and parents, the voice is a mysterious mental aberration they’ve tried treating for years with meds and therapy. But nothing’s worked.
Usually playful and carefree, Gabby’s visits are now filling Violet with unexplainable fear, and even making her dizzy and nauseous. Worried they’ll put her away for good, Violet keeps Gabby’s troubles to herself. When Neil joins her English class and they connect in church, his down-to-earth, gentle nature draws her closer. So close, she trusts him with her secret. And he’s the first to believe her.
But Gabby doesn't trust Neil. She rebels, causing blackouts and strange bruises that land Violet in the hospital, and now they want to send her for long-term testing. Feeling betrayed by everyone, Violet runs away with Neil to his reservation, where his grandfather performs a shamanic ritual. In a trance-like vision, Violet enters one of her own body’s cells and witnesses how her atoms’ electrons link her—through a long-distance magnetic force—to another person. A real person. It explains her blackouts and bruises. They’re really Gabby’s. And Gabby is in big trouble.
When police arrest Neil for harboring a runaway, Violet escapes in his truck. Now on her own to save Gabby, all Violet has to work with are cryptic clues about Gabby’s location and Neil’s intelligent dog. If Violet can’t save her, she not only jeopardizes her own safety, she risks losing her lifelong friend and the first guy who ever believed in her.
First 250:
Three days since I’d secretly quit taking my meds. Or was it four? This might have ranked as the stupidest thing I’d ever done. Huddled in the back seat of Dad’s SUV, I forced my eyes open. Swirling gray clouds dumped more rain onto the street, already flooded from a week of late-September storms.
That spot where Gabby lived in my head was empty. For now, anyway. After all her drama, insisting I “stop the drugs,” she hadn’t even popped in since I’d quit. Maybe it was better that way. Because just thinking about how weird she’d been acting lately made me sweat all over. Staring out the window, tears filled my eyes, blurring the falling rain. I didn’t even know my best friend anymore. I almost wished she’d never visit me again.
A gust whipped fat drops against the windshield, forcing Dad to slow down and lean forward. We crawled through the downpour and turned into the mini mart’s lot. While Dad ran in for drinks, Mom flipped down the visor’s mirror and applied that bright-red lipstick I hated. She saw me looking at her. “You still mad at me?”
“I was tired. I didn’t mean to yell.” I’d swear she was more concerned about being yelled at than why I was so upset when she woke me for church. I’d barely slept all night, and I really wanted to tell her why. Tell Dad. Tell someone.
Gabby’s mantra echoed: Keep it inside, where it’s safe with me and you.
VERSUS
Title: Where the Waves Go
Entry Nickname: These Little Earthquakes
Word Count: 64K
Genre: YA Contemporary
Query:
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Elliott has always run away from life. She drinks to escape her depression, fools around with guys to ease her loneliness, and hangs out in cemeteries to avoid the living. After she's dumped by the first boy she ever loved, Charlie's drinking spirals out of control. Her mother kicks her out of the house, so Charlie leaves her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, for the city of her dreams: Los Angeles.
Charlie is ready for a fresh start—the only problem is she has no money and no plan. Unwilling to go back to the place where everyone knows her past, Charlie sleeps in a lifeguard tower on the Venice Beach Boardwalk, sharing the space with a stray cat and a schizophrenic homeless man. Life on the streets is harder than anything she’s faced before, and she turns to drinking once again to numb her pain.
Fortunately, Charlie meets Les, an awkward 16-year-old gamer. Charlie crashes with Les when she gets sick, and they quickly develop feelings for each other. But without a job or place to live, Charlie doesn't have long to decide whether she should go back to Ann Arbor and face her addiction or stay in L.A. where she has nothing...except for Les.
First 250:
The familiar sting slides down my throat as I take a sip of whiskey. It’s sharp and hollow at the same time. I don’t wince when I feel it, not anymore. Instead, I find it soothing, knowing the relief that the sting will ultimately bring me.
The music is loud, some rap song I’ve never heard before. Stacey Harrington stands right in front of me but might as well be a thousand miles away. She’s saying something about the new exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, trying to sound intelligent and cultured. Normally, I would force a smile and tell her about the time I went to the Louvre in Paris. I’d talk about how tiny the Mona Lisa is in real life and pretend to be sophisticated and discerning, despite the fact that Paris is the only foreign city I’ve ever been to and it was back when I was ten.
But I don’t feel like playing that game. I haven’t felt like it in a while.
Stacey’s blonde hair is up in the highest ponytail imaginable, and over the top of her head, I see someone step through the front door. Suddenly, I don’t hear the music anymore. I don’t see Stacey, or smell the scent of booze and mildew, or feel the plastic cup gripped in my hand. Everything around me halts to a stop.
It’s Trevor.
His dark brown eyes scan the room like he’s looking for someone, the way he used to look for me.
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