Tuesday, July 7, 2015

QUERY KOMBAT 2015 YA CHAMPION

Leslie Miller

Leslie Miller grew up on a steady diet of Dr. Seuss until graduating to Nancy Drew. She is still on the lookout for wacky words and important clues, even to this day. Currently, Leslie lives near Denver, Colorado where she works as a ghostwriter and developmental editor by day, novelist by night, and watercolor artist whenever she has time. An incurable bookworm growing up, Leslie is surprised it took her so many years to start writing her own stories.

Leslie loves color and tries to incorporate it into her writing as vividly as in her paintings. A native New Yorker, Leslie worked in NY’s fashion industry as a dress patternmaker. She says, “You can take the girl out of fashion, but you can never take the fashion out of the girl.” Leslie’s novels incorporate her sense of whimsy and adventure. She hopes to take readers on a journey they won’t soon forget.

In her spare time, she paints watercolors, tramples merrily through thrift shops, binge-watches Shark Tank, and loudly out-sings contestants on The Voice.

Check out Leslie’s paintings on her Pinterest page. Contact Leslie for developmental and content editing or ghostwriting services. Check out her Facebook, Twitter, and YoutTbe!

YA Championship Entry:


Entry Nickname:
Elephants Never Forget
Title: THE IVORY NEEDLE
Word Count: 72K
Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy

Query:

Only two are yet remaining,
Precious magic ever waning . . .

That’s just part of the mysterious message 16-yr-old Chessie receives when she’s forced to visit her great-grandmother for the summer. Bad enough Gram lives in middle-of-nowhere, Kenya. But when Chessie’s contacted by the spirit of Jhelani, an eons-dead elephant, things take a total left turn toward weird. Communicating with cryptic songs and strange symbols, Jhelani’s message slowly emerges: if someone cannot save the last of her once-immortal tribe, the Earth may pay an unknown price. Freaked out and overwhelmed, Chessie shuts down, breaks communication, and refuses to help.

Meanwhile, Kenyan teen Daniel can’t feed his family when his crops fail. Desperate for work, he’s coerced into a gang of poachers with their sights set on a huge payday: the remaining elephants of Jhelani’s tribe. Just this one job, he swears. Then he’ll find honest work. Hold his head up again.

Chessie finally comes to a decision. She wants to be the kind of person who, as Gram would say, “grabs life by the tusks.” But by the time she finds the missing elephants, the poachers are closing in. With elephants charging and bullets flying, Chessie’s taken prisoner and her world and Daniel’s collide. To survive, Chessie must conquer her fears and seize a dangerous opportunity to escape. And Daniel must decide where he’ll draw the line: thief, poacher, or accessory to murder.

First 250:

When your family falls apart, I suppose you shouldn’t expect anything to be the same again. Not even your mother’s smile.

Mom’s goofy I-love-my-life smile hadn’t been seen in months, and I’d become all too familiar with the distant impostor that had replaced it. But the smile she wore right now? Pretty sure I’d never seen that one before. Like something you’d grab at the mall without stopping to try it on, it was too tight and way too bright.

And she was cooking, for the first time in months. “Mom? What’s going on?” I dropped into a kitchen chair and watched her pull something from the oven.

“Roast chicken? Dibs on the drumstick,” Bent shouted, slamming his scrawny ten-year-old frame into the chair nearest the chicken. He leaned across the table, freckled nose practically up the bird’s butt, and took a deep sniff. “Look, Chessie, mac-n-cheese, too.”

Mom set a tray of steaming cornbread on the table and sat down, still beaming. “Your great-gram has invited us to visit her. In Africa.”

I paused, forkful of mac-n-cheese halfway to my mouth. My stomach felt hollow. I had the feeling no amount of mac-n-cheese was going to fill it, not even one with four gourmet cheeses and a crispy crumb topping. “Can you get enough time off for a trip like that?”

Her smile flickered like the lights during a thunderstorm, right before the power went out for good. “I . . . I can’t go. But you two will go without me.”

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