Teen Eyes Contest: Taryn's Winner!

Here's the scoop, from Taryn Albright of Teen Eyes: 

I read over 300 queries in the 10 days leading up to this contest with entries coming from my internship, this contest, and my query critique contest last week. That means the winners would really have to stand out. That said, I was surprised at how many intrigued me! If I'd gotten the following 24 queries in my inbox, I would have been a very happy intern:

Distant Horizon

An Unnatural Elegance

Kissing Frogs

Shut Up and Kill Me

An Uncommon Blue

Darkling

The Show Must Not Go On

Duet with the Devil’s Violin

Perfectly Broken

Crow’s Rest

And We All Are Damned

Dusted

The Astronaut’s Daughter

Operation Breakup

Chick Magnet

Cynisca and the Olive Crown

Temple Falls

Race to Butch Cassidy's Gold

Seven Riddles to Nowhere

Startripped

Accidents and Incidents

How Snow Came to the Desert

Abel Pirates

Princess of Swans

A few of them made me really excited:

Shut Up and Kill Me

Operation Breakup

Cynisca and the Olive Crown

Race to Butch Cassidy's Gold

Abel Pirates

But an early-on entry made me sit up and pay attention, and I knew right from the beginning this query was going to be really hard to beat.

Congratulations to Sarah Nelson with SHUT UP AND KILL ME.

High school's a bitch, especially when everyone thinks you're a murderer. I'm immediately hooked by both the voice and the content here. A murderer? WHY? Tell me more!

Claire Alexander was arrested for killing her parents when she was thirteen. Sure, she was acquitted four months later, but that sort of rep is hard to shake. More voice, easy, well-done backstory. Now, after four years shifting between out-of-town family members, seventeen-year-old Claire has come back home to try for a normal life. But normal isn't easy when your sister's on drugs, the cops still think you're a killer, and the media call you the Baby Faced Butcher. Baby Faced Butcher sealed the deal for me. Plus I love this character who is strong enough to come back home.

Only high school drop-out, Blake Slater, believes in Claire's innocence. He thinks her parents were murdered by a serial killer, and he says he has proof. Omg, serial killer? DANGER! However alluring Blake may be (who can resist a pick-up line like "I know you didn't do it"?), Claire dismisses the theory. After all, this so-called serial killer should've been brought up at her trial. Hmm, why wasn't he? Why didn't Blake step forward earlier? THESE ARE THINGS I NEED TO KNOW! MS, please!!!
But Claire realises that Blake may have a point when she stumbles upon a crime scene where a local couple have been murdered. Worse, the whole set-up gives her a sick sense of deja vu. It looks like her parents' murderer has come home too. So I don't actually think I read to this point in the query. I was too busy salivating over the premise. This paragraph isn't the most clear, but I've already been so hooked it doesn't matter. It does introduce danger and the fact that there is a plot, and that's about all I needed to know to want this in my pile ASAP.

Congratulations, Sarah!  Please contact Taryn directly to discuss your prize.