Query for QUEEN OF SWORDS

[redqueen1]

So I'm sure you've noticed by now that I enjoy writing queries. Mostly. I generally start them around the time I get 1/3 into the book and revise constantly until the end. This is the current copy for QoS. It'll probably change before (if) I send it out, but I'm moderately happy with it now. It's been the single most difficult query so far (out of

Comments

[selestial_owg]

Okay, I'm going to try to break this down.

As a Diviner, Ophelia knows the cards don’t lie. So when they tell her to marry the Prince of the planet Hansarda, she reluctantly <> packs up her life and goes. What they neglect to mention is that she’s going to be kidnapped by the Prince’s half-brother, Boone; the same man she fell into bed with during the course of a fabulous <> night out.

Under normal circumstances, Ophelia would have no problem killing her captor and escaping. But the cards, her forum of communication with her goddess <>, keep giving her readings that promise << Maybe just simplify the beginning of this sentence: But the card readings keep promising >> a happily-ever-after, but << second but in this sentence >>, at the same time, warn of a horrible price to be paid. And then there’s Boone himself. He stirs things inside Ophelia, things that go beyond their intense physical attraction << This is a little vague, but since it's a romance, odds are an agent would just read it in a romancey way >>.

Embroiled in the beginnings of a civil war <>, Boone doesn’t have time for a hellcat with a penchant for making him bleed <>. But he can’t stand by and let the Prince marry her and <> gain her family connections to the biggest gun-running business in the universe <>. What he didn’t expect was to admire her so much, or to have <> this bizarre need for her to trust him.

<>

Boone also didn’t expect Ophelia to get pregnant from their single night together. Now he can’t let her walk away for fear the Prince will hunt her down and kill her because the child she carries is a potential rival for Hansarda’s throne.

The thing is, Ophelia has no intention of walking away. She never was much good at running and hiding, and she’s not about to start now. And, thanks to the cards, she knows how the story ends; Ophelia’s will be the hand that brings down the Prince. But the cards don’t always tell the full story, and the price for victory just might be more than she’s willing to pay.<>

[sandy_williams]

I agree with her. I don't think you should put the pregnancy thing in there. The first half of the query is pretty good, I think you just go on a little too long with the 2nd half.

Just a thought: how big an issue is the gun-running business. I remember it being an issue in the beginning, but maybe not so much the end? I think that's a good plot point that might need to be highlighted more, to show the stakes and how Ophelia can influence the outcome of the war?