May 5, 2009

Query - The Brigid

In this 80,000 word urban fantasy, The Brigid, one man's lack of faith in his unseen heritage may be the weakness that destroys the entire world, starting with those closest to him.
They are brothers. Twins. They live in the white world, but a piece of them belongs to their mother's people, the Nez Perce. CALEB accepts that piece of himself, but MIKA's doubts haunt him. Does he really have a spirit guide, or is the voice he hears in his head merely intuition?
Into their lives comes a beautiful woman with no memory and frightening enemies who stretch the brothers' credulity—the beautiful but terrifying creatures she says are Tuatha de dannan. Her friends, like the wee man who smokes a dragonbone pipe and who just might be a leprechaun, are equally unbelievable.
In order to save not just the world of the mysterious stranger, who both brothers are starting to fall in love with, but their own world as well, Mika must learn to believe and Caleb must learn to see his own worth outside of his brother's shadow.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna be honest and say that this query disappointed me.

When I saw the words urban fantasy and Nez Perce I was hoping for something that would be about the tribal legends and myths. To have it instead be about the Celtic Tuatha was a letdown.

Everybody and their cousin has written about the Celts and there is nothing in this query that really grabs me. Nothing that indicates that there is something here that's interesting. Some aspect to it that hasn't been beaten to death by a thousand other authors.

Who is this beautiful woman? Why has she come to the brothers? Why are the Tuatha the enemy? Why is Caleb in his brother's shadow?

Stephanie said...

I had the same reaction as anaquana & agree with those points. It also needs a lot of structure work. It seems to be all over the place and I feel like an agent would assume the book suffers from the same lack of clarity and structure. I think one solution might be to boils it down to some basic, hard plot points and to bring in some voice to distinguish it.

Best of luck with it :)

DLJensen said...

I don't really quite get what the story is about, and I agree with the comments above regarding the native element being more interesting.
A few suggestions:
1. I would say 'unknown heritage' vs 'unseen'
2. Change 'starting with' to 'beginning with'
3. 'destroys the entire world' is over-dramatic.
4. I would suggest 'Mika and Caleb are twin brothers living in a white world, but their history belongs to their mother's people, the Nez Perce.'
5. My understanding is that asking questions in a query is not a good idea, so suggest rephrasing that part.
6. I would skip the description of her weird friends as say, 'and her equally unimaginable friends.'
7. Is her world a different world than the twins?
8. Nothing you told me up until the last sentence led me to believe Caleb was living in his bro's shadow.

Good luck!

Lori Folkman said...

I think you need to move the first paragraph to the end. Jump in with the hook..they were brothers.

Some formatting help...
All caps on the characters names are only for a synopsis.

You need an extra space between paragraphs when you are not indenting like you would with the ms.

Good luck!