Query-A Profusion of Want

Click here to read the first revision (Retitled as KINGMAKER).
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Click here to read the second revision (KINGMAKER).

Dear [Agent],

When sixteen-year-old Shale Peterson really wants something to happen, it does. That’s how she wins every competition she enters, from tennis to chess. According to her soon-to-be stepfather Grey, it’s also the reason her mother Leah is still alive long after doctors say that a brain tumor should have killed her. Shale admires Grey, the head of an international corporation and the only person she’s ever known as strong-willed as she is. But she mistrusts him too—because he seems to care more about becoming Shale’s father than becoming Leah’s husband.

Bit by bit, Shale’s doubts melt away as Grey draws her into his world of power and possibilities, of duty and privilege—a world hidden in plain sight and filled with people who believe that willpower and magic are one and the same—a world which, unbeknownst to Shale, Grey intends for her to one day rule. Shortly after Grey and Leah leave on their honeymoon an attempt on Shale’s life lands her in the hospital, and repeated covert attacks after she is released prove that she’s not safe anywhere—and worse, that she can’t trust anyone. What galvanizes Shale to action, however, is not fear for her own life but for her mother’s: because Grey and Leah have disappeared on their honeymoon and Leah is still very sick.

Uncertain of whether her strong will really is a form of magic, Shale must overcome an unfamiliar enemy, doubt—because, magic or not, the only thing she can rely on now is her considerable willpower. With it, she’s going to lay a trap for her mysterious assassin, and she's going to ensure that they can never touch her again. With it, she is going to get Leah back.

And if they've hurt her mother? Shale is going to burn their world down.

A PROFUSION OF WANT is a young adult novel, complete at 80,000 words.