Hi All - I'm about to start querying my book and I'm in need of some help. I've read that it's best to keep the book blurb short in your query letter, but I'm worried I've been too vague. My current draft (pasted below) is 188 words (I'm still working on the opening and closing of the letter). Is this synopsis too short? Help me, Good Reads Hive Mind!
Blighted babies should be given to the desert. That knowledge has hounded Meron for eighteen years. Because of her birth defect, she’s been ostracized from her tribe: blamed for every lost camel and sick child and betrothed to an old man who already has two wives. And he only agreed to marry her because he owed Meron’s father a favor.
On the night of her wedding ceremony, raiders attack, slaughtering Meron’s tribe and leaving her alone in the middle of the desert, still wearing her wedding clothes. Her survival depends on crossing a land riddled with dangers: giant crabs that suck their victims dry, and immortal beings she thought were myths. When she’s captured by djinn -- shapeshifting marauders who prey on humans – Meron is given a choice: die with the other captives or discover who’s been enslaving the djinn and why. As the trail leads her closer to the dark kingdom next door and the monsters that guard it, Meron learns why the djinn selected her for this task and she discovers a secret that could propel her to the upper echelons of society, blighted or not.
Blighted babies should be given to the desert. That knowledge has hounded Meron for eighteen years. Because of her birth defect, she’s been ostracized from her tribe: blamed for every lost camel and sick child and betrothed to an old man who already has two wives. And he only agreed to marry her because he owed Meron’s father a favor.
On the night of her wedding ceremony, raiders attack, slaughtering Meron’s tribe and leaving her alone in the middle of the desert, still wearing her wedding clothes. Her survival depends on crossing a land riddled with dangers: giant crabs that suck their victims dry, and immortal beings she thought were myths. When she’s captured by djinn -- shapeshifting marauders who prey on humans – Meron is given a choice: die with the other captives or discover who’s been enslaving the djinn and why. As the trail leads her closer to the dark kingdom next door and the monsters that guard it, Meron learns why the djinn selected her for this task and she discovers a secret that could propel her to the upper echelons of society, blighted or not.