Here's my entry for The Writer's Voice!
Title: Needle's Eye
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Word Count: 69,000
Query:
17-year-old Akira Tanaka isn’t your typical Russian girl.
Sure, she does ballet, but only to hone her Japanese sword-fighting skills, and
she wouldn’t be caught dead in stilettos or a mini-skirt. Between her Russian
grandparents and Japanese-American father, Akira has been raised on a
combination of cultures that leaves her feeling out of place even in her hometown
of St. Petersburg. With her sights set on an upcoming kenjutsu tournament and university in Japan, Akira is blindsided by
the mysterious Dmitri, who not only wants to be a part of her future, but knows
entirely too much about her past.
Meanwhile, a series of violent murders has left several
major Russian cities on edge, and there are strange links to a story Akira’s
grandfather told her when she was still a child: the story of Koschei the
Deathless. Up until now, she never believed her grandfather’s ridiculous claim
that Koschei had spared his life in exchange for Akira’s soul, any more than
she believes in the big bad wolf. But the strange, insect-like sound her
grandfather once described is eerily similar to the one Akira hears every time
another victim is killed. And the more time she spends with Dmitri, the more
she starts to wonder if there isn’t something evil lurking behind his ice blue
eyes.
As the murderer closes in on the people surrounding Akira,
she finds herself on the verge of losing everything—and everyone—she’s ever
cared about. Now it’s up to Akira to stop the killer, but this time it will
take more than a deal with the devil to save the people she loves.
NEEDLE’S EYE, a multicultural YA urban fantasy, is complete
at 69,000 words and will appeal to fans of Christina Farley’s Gilded. I have written and edited
professionally for multiple publications including Leatherneck Magazine, the Costco
Connection, and the Veteran’s Administration blog. For the past year and a
half, I have lived and worked in Yekaterinburg, Russia, where my husband is
serving as a diplomat. I hold a Master’s degree from the University of London
and blog about my experiences abroad at mosteligiblefamily.blogspot.com.
First 250:
When
I was very small, my grandfather told me stories of Koschei the Deathless.
He
was trying to frighten me. They were the kinds of tales villagers told children
to keep them from wandering alone into the woods, the Russian equivalent of Little Red Riding Hood. But just as there was nothing scary
about a wolf wearing a bonnet and bifocals, there was nothing remotely
frightening about my grandfather, so I paid little attention to his stories.
“Solavushka,” he began (he had called me
“little nightingale” since I was an infant, when I kept everyone up all night
with my “singing”), “the thing you must know about Koschei the Deathless is
that he will not appear as a wicked old man with a long white beard, the way
the storybooks say. He will not take you to his castle to make you his wife.”
I
nodded as I examined my grandfather’s long, wiry eyebrow hairs, wondering why
my grandmother didn’t trim them.
“Akira,
are you listening?”
“Yes,
Dedushka. I will make sure to stay
away from Koschei.”
“You
are not listening, child,” my
grandfather grumbled, standing abruptly so I tumbled onto the floor. “How many
times do I have to tell you?” He shook his head as he stormed off into the
kitchen for some of my grandmother’s walnut oreshki.
“I
met him when I was a young man,” he told me once, not long before he died. “He
had taken the form of a small girl, just a year or two younger than you are
now.”
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