Tides
BY betsy cornwell houghton2013Query Letter
I hope you will consider representing my young adult novel Tides, complete at 71,000 words. Like Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver and Franny Billingsley's The Folk Keeper, Tides is a darkly atmospheric novel that gives a fresh, romantic perspective to a shape-shifter legend. The Recent Deals page on your website lists a dark mermaid novel, Syrenka, as well as two New England-set books, Nantucket Blue and Lovely, Dark, and Deep. Tides focuses on the Celtic ocean lore of selkies, set on the Isles of Shoals, remote islands off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. Tides weaves magical realism and coming-of-age romance into the story of a marine science student who must betray his mentor to save the family of the selkie girl he loves.
When Noah Gallagher moves into his grandmother's ramshackle island cottage for the summer, he doesn't expect much in the way of adventure. His internship at the local research aquarium is the first step toward his lifelong dream of becoming a marine biologist, and he plans on spending every minute working toward that dream. But soon Noah meets Mara, a mysterious young woman who shows him a secret world of selkie shape-shifters and ancient magic. When Mara's mother and Noah's grandmother reveal their decades-long romance, Mara and Noah are thrown into an unlikely friendship and budding romance of their own. And when they discover that Noah's mentor at the aquarium is kidnapping selkies and experimenting on their sealskins, Noah must prove his innocence to Mara, and the two must fight to save her family.
As a columnist and editor at Teen Ink Magazine, I often heard from teens who wanted real literary substance in the fantasy and paranormal books they love. I wrote Tides with that audience in mind. While I recently left Teen Ink to pursue an MFA in creative writing, the magazine still offers a ready publicity platform for my writing. My fairy tale retelling "Autopsy" was shortlisted for the 2010 Aeon Award, and some of my previous publishing credits include Fickle Muses, Labrys, The Violence Prevention Initiative Journal, Fresh Writing, and Scars Publications' anthology Echo. I graduated from Smith College with a degree in English and concentrations in folklore and creative writing. I am currently enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Notre Dame.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please let me know if you are interested in Tides. This is a multiple submission. I look forward to hearing from you.
About
Age Range
Young Adult
Genre
Fantasy (Contemporary)
Word Count
71,000
Book Link
https://www.amazon.com/Tides-Betsy-Cornwell/dp/0544302966
Agent
Sara Crowe
Query Stats
Number of Queries Sent
35
Number of Full Requests Received
15
Number of Offers of Representation
2
Number of Months Spent Querying This Novel
9 months
Years Spent Writing Before Getting an Offer
17
Number of Manuscripts Queried Before This One
0
Publication Status of The Book Queried
Published (Big 5)
Years Spent Writing Before This Book was Published
17 -- but I'm counting from when I wrote my "first book" at age 6