THE FIRST 22: Historical fantasy

[geogstacey]

Sixteen-year-old Derek thought the biggest challenges in life were on a football field. Now, he's learning there are even greater challenges to face—after death, when he becomes a reaper.

Derek joins the magical world of reapers where he travels between the earthly realm, the reaper realm and the underworld delivering souls from this life to the next. To receive his reaper’s pin, the mark of a graduated reaper he has to pass the final test, ferry the souls to the underworld and deliver them to the gates of heaven and hell.

Everything goes wrong when two rogue reapers hijack Derek’s shipment of souls and heaven’s gatekeeper threatens war against the reaper world if the souls aren’t returned, and quickly. Derek travels to the underworld and takes on flesh-eating giants, psychotic merpeople and amnesia inducing rivers to find the culprits responsible and deliver the souls back to heaven before all hell breaks loose.

Complete at 50,000 words, THE FIRST 22 is historical fantasy based on the first 22 days of a reapers life. I am a member of SCBWI and a contributing author to the blog Our Pages Aren’t Numbered.

Thank you for your time.

[Zooks]

I think the use of 'reaper' 8x in such a short query is excessive.  I like the humor of the psychotic merpeople and 'all hell breaks loose'.  If heaven's gatekeeper knows the rogue reapers have hijacked the souls, why does he threaten war [doesn't seem very heavenly] against ALL reaperville and not just against the two rogues? It's unclear to me what sort of 'war' would take place, but I'm imagining Derek employing some of his football maneuvers when he's fighting the flesh-eating giants, psychotic merpeople and coping with the amnesia-inducing rivers.  Good luck with this.

Sixteen-year-old Derek thought the biggest challenges in life were on a football field. Now, he's learning there are even greater challenges to face—after death, when he becomes a reaper.

Derek joins the magical world of reapers where he travels between the earthly realm, the reaper realm and the underworld delivering souls from this life to the next. To receive his reaper’s pin, the mark of a graduated reaper he has to pass the final test, ferry the souls to the underworld and deliver them to the gates of heaven and hell.

Everything goes wrong when two rogue reapers hijack Derek’s shipment of souls and heaven’s gatekeeper threatens war against the reaper world if the souls aren’t returned, and quickly. Derek travels to the underworld and takes on flesh-eating giants, psychotic merpeople and amnesia inducing rivers to find the culprits responsible and deliver the souls back to heaven before all hell breaks loose.

Complete at 50,000 words, THE FIRST 22 is historical fantasy based on the first 22 days of a reapers life. I am a member of SCBWI and a contributing author to the blog Our Pages Aren’t Numbered.

Thank you for your time.

[Lance C.]

Question: which part of this is "historical"? That implies it's set in a non-modern period, but there's nothing in the query about that. Expect some puzzlement from the agents who get this query.

It's probably also worth mentioning that this is YA, just to make sure the point is made. Unless it's not YA, in which case some explanation is in order.

[Aszreal]

I echo what the others said. I think it sounds like a fantastic story. The only other question I had was why does he become a Reaper? is it something he's been training for? Something he found out he was destined for and didn't have a choice but to do? A family tradition? Something else?

I really like your opening sentence, it's got a great voice, but it doesn't seem to tie into the rest of the query, and a short blurb about why he's a reaper may help that.

Best of luck to you!