QK Round 3: BEST(IARY) WESTERN versus GUINNESS
Entry Nickname: Best(iary) WesternTitle: Fugitive Motel
Word count: 90K
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy
Query:
By day, fifteen-year-old Iris Vox sleepwalks through high school. By night, she plays a grown-up behind the reception desk of her father’s Kansas hotel, checking supernatural Others in and out. Quick with a dart gun or a convenient lie, Iris provides her guests with live food, fresh blood, or a quiet place to spin a web.
It’s the only life Iris has ever known, but it was safer when her dad didn’t spend so much time as a human smoothie. Born with a hereditary curse, he liquefies then pupates back to his normal shape. Dad’s metamorphosis used to happen on a schedule. Now it comes without warning, leaving Iris to hold everything together.
Just as sleep is a luxury to Iris, so is the truth. Her father won’t admit that something’s changed in his curse, or where her mother went. Enraged by her father’s silence, Iris turns to her guests for human contact. Consoling a vampire’s fading blood moll, soothing the self-hate of werewolves, and helping a handsome insect learn to fly, Iris finds her role as listener and solace. While Iris navigates her anger, the curses that fuel the Other world get stronger and stranger. Deeply buried magic is rising to the surface, bringing with it ancient beings who lack the “humanity” that makes Others worth protecting.
Faced with how these new beings will corrupt and endanger the world of Others, Iris finally learns her father’s secret, and its cost to her family. Now she has to decide whether she wants to become the next Innkeeper, or leave the Other world behind.
The 250:
5:45 a.m.
A man staggers in through our automatic doors. Glad for some action, I slide last month’s National Geographic under the counter to focus on my customer. Nothing special about him; anyone else would see a regional salesman coming in after driving all night. An older man with skin like a re-used paper bag.
But the stagger…it’s not quite right. Drunks weave. This guy lurches forward like he’s got an absolute goal. Our desk. Me.
Yep. Pale, sullen, haggard with a side of desperate determination? Definitely looks like one of ours, but I have to be sure.
“Can I help you, Sir?”
“Have you got a room, Miss?”
The man grips the rim of the counter to steady himself. His well-groomed fingernails point toward me. With a great effort he lifts his left hand and slaps it on the counter twice. That’s good. It’s half the sign. Still, he’s not finished performing.
“What are you looking for exactly, Sir?” I prompt.
There’s a long anxious pause as he tries to remember. He grips so hard that his nail beds turn whitish gray. My right hand creeps under the counter so that my index finger can rest on the pebbled steel of the trigger. I feel it and my heart rate drops.
“Rest and feed,” the man answers finally, fishing the words from some hard-to-access place in his brain, laying them out heavily on the counter.
Bingo.
The words before the knocks would have better though. Doing it backwards means he’s starving.
VERSUS
Entry Nickname: GuinnessTitle: Blacktop Oracle
Word count: 65,000
Genre: YA Supernatural Fantasy
Query:
Seventeen-year-old Cooper “Coop” Lambert excels at mischief. After he takes a joy ride in the school’s athletic van, he’s given a chance to expunge his record: community service through Seniors Serving Seniors. He’s assigned to Mac, a 92-year-old crotchety piece of work, but he has a way with cars. They’ve nearly finished restoring Mac’s badass 1969 GTO when Coop arrives at the garage to find Mac dead. Days after burying his elderly friend things only grow more treacherous when Coop discovers Mac left the GTO to him.
Mac failed to mention that Sybil goes all funhouse mirror while doing 80 on the interstate. The windows wash out and instead of the landscape he sees visions of people in trouble. If that isn’t enough to get him committed, the prophecies start coming true, and the cops eyeball Coop for knowing more than he should. He doesn’t haveto tell anyone, he can keep it to himself. But when he witnesses a murder, he has a choice to make. If he keeps his mouth shut, someone he knows dies. If he talks, it’s a one-way ticket up crap creek, where his parents have a rubber room on reserve.
First 250:
Dust swirled around Coop’s head, clinging to his hair, skin, and eyelashes. Grit lined his nose and tickled his throat, but Mac kept reminding him that restoration was art, a way of bonding with the GTO. Coop cut off the sander and ran his gloved hand across the fender.
Mac grunted, sitting with his cast up on a case of WD-40 while tapping his glass with one nail.
Coop pulled the dust mask down and inhaled deep. What’d I do this time? Not bow on one knee before touching her? “What?”
“Don’t get many dates, do you?”
The old man was famous for causing whiplash with topic changes, but Coop had learned to go with it. “Huh?”
Mac shifted in his fifties La-Z-boy, easing the pressure on his leg. His garage was a haven for old shit, stuffed everywhere, even in the rafters. “A car’s like a woman.”
Coop mopped sweat off his forehead with one arm. What the hell did that have to do with anything? Mac’s wrinkled gaze homed in, and he realized the old guy wanted a response. “Yeah, how so?”
“A woman must be handled gently.” Mac ran his calloused hand lightly, almost lovingly, across the fender. “Stroked in a way that soothes rather than offends. A car is the same way.” Mac was full of…little bits of wisdom.
Coop eyed the fender, struggling to follow the old fart's logic.
“Take that blasted glove off.” Mac’s gravelly voice landed on Coop’s last nerve, but he ripped it off.
Word count: 90K
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy
Query:
By day, fifteen-year-old Iris Vox sleepwalks through high school. By night, she plays a grown-up behind the reception desk of her father’s Kansas hotel, checking supernatural Others in and out. Quick with a dart gun or a convenient lie, Iris provides her guests with live food, fresh blood, or a quiet place to spin a web.
It’s the only life Iris has ever known, but it was safer when her dad didn’t spend so much time as a human smoothie. Born with a hereditary curse, he liquefies then pupates back to his normal shape. Dad’s metamorphosis used to happen on a schedule. Now it comes without warning, leaving Iris to hold everything together.
Just as sleep is a luxury to Iris, so is the truth. Her father won’t admit that something’s changed in his curse, or where her mother went. Enraged by her father’s silence, Iris turns to her guests for human contact. Consoling a vampire’s fading blood moll, soothing the self-hate of werewolves, and helping a handsome insect learn to fly, Iris finds her role as listener and solace. While Iris navigates her anger, the curses that fuel the Other world get stronger and stranger. Deeply buried magic is rising to the surface, bringing with it ancient beings who lack the “humanity” that makes Others worth protecting.
Faced with how these new beings will corrupt and endanger the world of Others, Iris finally learns her father’s secret, and its cost to her family. Now she has to decide whether she wants to become the next Innkeeper, or leave the Other world behind.
The 250:
5:45 a.m.
A man staggers in through our automatic doors. Glad for some action, I slide last month’s National Geographic under the counter to focus on my customer. Nothing special about him; anyone else would see a regional salesman coming in after driving all night. An older man with skin like a re-used paper bag.
But the stagger…it’s not quite right. Drunks weave. This guy lurches forward like he’s got an absolute goal. Our desk. Me.
Yep. Pale, sullen, haggard with a side of desperate determination? Definitely looks like one of ours, but I have to be sure.
“Can I help you, Sir?”
“Have you got a room, Miss?”
The man grips the rim of the counter to steady himself. His well-groomed fingernails point toward me. With a great effort he lifts his left hand and slaps it on the counter twice. That’s good. It’s half the sign. Still, he’s not finished performing.
“What are you looking for exactly, Sir?” I prompt.
There’s a long anxious pause as he tries to remember. He grips so hard that his nail beds turn whitish gray. My right hand creeps under the counter so that my index finger can rest on the pebbled steel of the trigger. I feel it and my heart rate drops.
“Rest and feed,” the man answers finally, fishing the words from some hard-to-access place in his brain, laying them out heavily on the counter.
Bingo.
The words before the knocks would have better though. Doing it backwards means he’s starving.
VERSUS
Entry Nickname: GuinnessTitle: Blacktop Oracle
Word count: 65,000
Genre: YA Supernatural Fantasy
Query:
Seventeen-year-old Cooper “Coop” Lambert excels at mischief. After he takes a joy ride in the school’s athletic van, he’s given a chance to expunge his record: community service through Seniors Serving Seniors. He’s assigned to Mac, a 92-year-old crotchety piece of work, but he has a way with cars. They’ve nearly finished restoring Mac’s badass 1969 GTO when Coop arrives at the garage to find Mac dead. Days after burying his elderly friend things only grow more treacherous when Coop discovers Mac left the GTO to him.
Mac failed to mention that Sybil goes all funhouse mirror while doing 80 on the interstate. The windows wash out and instead of the landscape he sees visions of people in trouble. If that isn’t enough to get him committed, the prophecies start coming true, and the cops eyeball Coop for knowing more than he should. He doesn’t haveto tell anyone, he can keep it to himself. But when he witnesses a murder, he has a choice to make. If he keeps his mouth shut, someone he knows dies. If he talks, it’s a one-way ticket up crap creek, where his parents have a rubber room on reserve.
First 250:
Dust swirled around Coop’s head, clinging to his hair, skin, and eyelashes. Grit lined his nose and tickled his throat, but Mac kept reminding him that restoration was art, a way of bonding with the GTO. Coop cut off the sander and ran his gloved hand across the fender.
Mac grunted, sitting with his cast up on a case of WD-40 while tapping his glass with one nail.
Coop pulled the dust mask down and inhaled deep. What’d I do this time? Not bow on one knee before touching her? “What?”
“Don’t get many dates, do you?”
The old man was famous for causing whiplash with topic changes, but Coop had learned to go with it. “Huh?”
Mac shifted in his fifties La-Z-boy, easing the pressure on his leg. His garage was a haven for old shit, stuffed everywhere, even in the rafters. “A car’s like a woman.”
Coop mopped sweat off his forehead with one arm. What the hell did that have to do with anything? Mac’s wrinkled gaze homed in, and he realized the old guy wanted a response. “Yeah, how so?”
“A woman must be handled gently.” Mac ran his calloused hand lightly, almost lovingly, across the fender. “Stroked in a way that soothes rather than offends. A car is the same way.” Mac was full of…little bits of wisdom.
Coop eyed the fender, struggling to follow the old fart's logic.
“Take that blasted glove off.” Mac’s gravelly voice landed on Coop’s last nerve, but he ripped it off.
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