Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Novel Pitch #10: ANGELINA'S SECRET

Title: Angelina's Secret
Author Name: Lisa Rogers
Genre: YA
Word Count: 60,000


As a child, Angelina spent years in counseling learning that Josie, her imaginary friend, wasn’t real. Now at age seventeen she discovers her childhood friend wasn’t imaginary after all. 

As if trying to lead her cheerleading squad to a state championship, breaking up with a boyfriend, and watching her brother move away to college, isn’t enough to deal with, now Angelina has to accept she’s either (A) crazy or (B) able to see ghosts. Wanting to believe in her sanity, she chooses (B) and welcomes Josie back into her life. With Josie’s return, Angelina learns to understand her ability, but even Josie can't help her deal with Shelly, the spirit of a confused teenager. 

Unknown to Angelina, Shelly, intent on having her day in the spotlight, influences her as she tries to choreograph a cheer routine for the state finals. When Angelina can’t explain how she came to know the unrevealed routine of a dead cheerleader, things go very wrong and she finds herself admitted into a psychiatric hospital for evaluation.

Discovering her gift isn’t as unusual as she once thought, Angelina knows she can spend the rest of her life pretending to be someone she isn’t or she can embrace who she is and take a chance that she may never get to go home. 

ANGELINA'S SECRET, a novel for young adults, addresses the pressures of surviving high school while learning to accept who you are.



First off, please accept my apologies for the delay in posting, Lisa!  The computer issues I had are now pretty much resolved, and I'm back home again after a crazy-full weekend in Boston at Arisia. 

The Good: GREAT opening hook! My editor-spidey sense started to tingle with this one. This lays out the characters, the setting, and the conflict clearly and compellingly. 

Suggestions: there's a misplaced comma in the second paragraph (college, isn't), but the rest of this reads like jacket copy. The only thing I'd suggest as a change is to refine your genre identification to "YA paranormal." 

BOTTOM LINE:  If you'd sent this to Spencer Hill (www.spencerhillpress.com), I'd have asked for the full manuscript (hint, hint). 'Nuff said. 

5 comments:

Cindy said...

Not that I'm an agent myself but I loved this one. I'd definitely want to read this book. :-)

Jennifer L. Armentrout said...

I've gotten to read the first couple of chapters on this and it really is good.

Just sayin.

Lisa Rogers said...

WOW!!! You all just made my day. Thank you so much. I will make the corrections AND go check out the website. I do have one question though for anyone who cares to answer. What does everyone think about the (a) (b) questions? Some have said it was distracting while others say it lends to the YA voice. Any comments?

Disgruntled Bear said...

Hi Lisa, The (A) and (B) did catch my attention. I might have suggested cutting them if you hadn't used the reference a second time, which really made it work.

Deniz Bevan said...

This sounds great! Plus, I'm partial to the name Shelley, as it's my sister-in-law's name [g]