For the final week of the Gearin’ Up To Get An Agent Blog-o-Rama on Deana Barnhart’s Blog, writers are to post their first 200 words of a completed YA, MG or PB manuscript and hop around to each other’s blogs to give feedback. After using that feedback, we all submit our final versions for review, and a chance to win critiques from Literary Agent Kathleen Rushall and author Monica B.W.
Title of Book: Arrow of the Mist
Genre: YA Fantasy
First 200 Words:
Lia dropped the harvested mallow root and sped from her garden to the cottage, her hound darting ahead. Ma’s scream shot like arrows a bolt through her heart, but Kenneth’s words, “He’s alive, Carin,” offered Lia a morsel of hope.
Kenneth carried him into the cottage, and Lia caught a glimpse of Da’s torn and bloodied clothing. “I’ll fetch Granda,” she cried, and hurried to her filly.
Clad in her usual boy’s breeches and high leather boots, Lia raced her horse down the path with her heart pounding in rhythm to the hoof beats. Stay strong, Da! Just a little longer, and Granda will be there to heal you.
Why hadn’t the her dreams forewarned her? They showed her when the mares or ewes would give birth, or when visitors were coming from afar, but her fate-dreams had failed to give a timely warning for Da.
