TITLE: Hunting Legends
GENRE: YA Urban Fantasy
Raid has no idea he’s falling for the girl of his nightmares when Azrielle, a human-cockatrice hybrid with a lethal gaze, infiltrates his elite squad of teenage monster hunters. Her objective is to stop the rising body count—not flirt with the enemy. If her identity is exposed, she’s dead.
Fastest way to a guy’s heart is a bullet between the third and fourth rib. Knife works too, but it’s slower, messier, and requires close range. I don’t need either. I’ve got something better.
Static crackles over the comm in my ear as I tail a group of humans creeping through the French Quarter ruins. If they see me, they’re dead. Dressed in black gear, the Venators think they blend with the dark as if night vision goggles aren’t a thing, glowing green in the middle of the road through my NVGs. They should know better than to hunt us in our territory. No way they’re reclaiming this city. It belongs to Legends, ‘monsters’ like me. More than eighty miles from the nearest functioning civilization, light pollution can’t touch us out in the Dead Zone.
Clouds cloak the sky, hiding the moon and stars, threatening luke-cold January rain. Won’t be enough to drop the temperature. Sweat collects at the nape of my neck, humidity weighing down the air in my lungs. I miss snow and ice.
These humans are all that stand between me and freedom. Seven bodies left. I already eliminated the other two units. Kills still fresh in my system, phantoms of their dying heartbeats echo in my chest. Finish this one last mission and my service debt—or rather my father’s—will be fulfilled. Do this and I’m done. No more Shade and their self-righteous crusade of noble intentions that lead straight to the graveyard.
Miss Snark's First Victim
I wonder if you should reword the pitch, so you start with Azrielle rather than Raid. I found it confusing at first because I thought Raid was going to be the main character. The last two sentences of the pitch are great.
ReplyDeleteI love the first lines, and I think the scene you're starting with is good, but I think it would be more effective if you took out the exposition and focused on what Azrielle is doing. For example, the first sentence in the second paragraph is scene, but the rest of the paragraph is exposition. Third paragraph is scene, fourth paragraph is exposition. I think this would be most effective if you'd leave out the explanations for now and just focus on describing her hunting whatever it is that she is hunting.
I agree with everything in the first comment. I really like this premise and Azrielle is a strong character with strong voice. I would definitely turn the page!
ReplyDeleteI also agree-I came down here to comment that I wasn't sure about the identity of the main character and had to re-read to understand that it isn't Raid. I love the opening paragraph. I think that the next three focus too much on revealing information. All we really need to know is what is happening now, and what our main character wants tonight. That will grip us enough to keep us reading (especially because it is something exciting like a hunt) to eventually learn more about this world.
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