Author: Erica Bertel
Date:   10-30-09 13:55

A lot has changed for Abigail Fellows in the last year. She lost her boyfriend, left the safety of college and is facing all the responsibilities of her family heritage. As the descendant of a powerful Wiccan family, working for the Wiccan Council isn’t a choice - it’s an obligation. Abby is appointed a Guardian, an elite group of witches who are essentially the watchdogs of the Wiccan Council.

Alec, a Council Watcher, begins having visions of violent abductions. While searching the internet for a link to his visions, Alec comes across an article detailing abductions in Parkville, Missouri. After recognizing several victims from his dreams, he informs the Council and an investigation is launched. Abby and Alec are sent to uncover who’s abducted the Parkville students and why. When the Council assigns Ephraim, Abby’s ex-boyfriend, as the lead investigator she nearly falls apart. This is the first time they have faced one another since their break-up. Avoiding each other was easier and considerably less painful. When the clues start implicating Abigail’s Aunt Esmeralda, a powerful witch who betrayed the Council, Abigail is forced to trust her if she wants to save the students of Parkville.
While researching the Council journals Abby finds similarities to the Parkville abductions in one of Esmeralda’s early journals. The description of the victims from an investigation in Cornwall, England, corresponds with the coroner’s reports from Parkville. The Cornwall investigation was lead by Ainsley Sutton, a Guardian for the European Wiccan Council or the EC for short.

The journal mentions Esmeralda finding a connection to an incident in the 1920’s involving a pack of werewolves manipulated to attack and retrieve victims for a witch. Esmeralda believed the Cornwall pack was being similarly manipulated and wanted to search for the witch she believed was behind the murders. Ainsley ignored Esmeralda, the pack was found guilty and banished to a scarcely populated region of Siberia.

Abby and Ephraim are magically teleported to the cabin of the banished pack in Siberia, only to discover the pack has been slaughtered by a powerful spell. Mary Brandon, the only survivor of the attack joins the investigation after she discovers her mother may be alive and being held captive.

The investigation team heads to Parkville, but despite their efforts more students are taken. Esmeralda contacts Abby again and steers her to a powerful werewolf named Nicklaus, who as it turns out is a professor of the missing students. Abby, trusting Esmeralda teams with Nick and learns he’s harboring the werewolves involved in the abductions. As they get closer to finding some answers and saving any survivors, the witches realize they may not be powerful enough to defeat whoever’s behind the disappearances. Abby and Ephraim attempt to distance themselves, but being with each other 24-hours a day in a constant state of danger makes that impossible and are drawn together again.

When the EC contacts the US Council regarding a discrepancy in their records involving Ainsley Sutton and a brother who seems to only exist in Esmeralda’s journals, the team knows this isn’t a coincidence and they begin to search for him. Now that they have a new suspect Esmeralda surfaces and offers her help hoping to clear her name. She has a way to find Ainsley and soon leads the group to a confrontation not knowing, he’s been leading a new life under an alias. After being disgraced and forced out of the European Council he came to the states magically changed his appearance and started over. Ainsley, now known as Bray Long - one of twelve US Council leaders, has been covering for his brother’s atrocities in Cornwall for more than two decades and is now forced to cover for him again in Parkville. He’s determined to keep his alias a secret at all cost including framing Esmeralda and killing the investigation team and his brother’s hostages.
During a final show down with Ainsley and his brother Cairn, Ainsley overpowers Esmeralda. Abby intercedes and in her anger a new power emerges which she’s unable to control ultimately killing Ainsley while Cairn gets away.

After the Council inquiry Abby, who is struggling with causing Ainsley’s death and the fear her new power can’t be controlled, drives a wedge between herself and everyone she loves including Ephraim leaving them both broken hearted. Abby’s leaves everything she cares for behind unsure if she can learn how to control her new power and questioning whether she can continue as a Guardian if it means killing again.

Author: Cathy C
Date:   10-30-09 20:59

Erica, I don't want to disillusion you, but there's a LOT of work to be done on this before it's ready to send anywhere. I'll do my best to give you some basic ideas of the problems, but I'll warn you, there are quite a few.

First and foremost, you MUST choose a protagonist to follow throughout. While I know there are multiple people in the book, a reader of the synopsis can't focus on the theme and emotional depth of the book when there are so many people involved. I'd say from the first read that Abby is your primary focus. Go with her and leave out the other points of view. If you think you HAVE focused on Abby, you're wrong. This bounces all over the place between Abby's POV, Alec's, Ephraims, Ainsley's, Esmeralda (BTW, are you noticing a theme here on names? A, A, E, A, E? An editor will very likely insist you change at least THREE of the names, if not more, in order for the book to be accepted for publication. Unless there's an incredibly compelling world-building reason why you've done this, it should change. It's far too confusing to readers.)

Next, there's no clear indication of the GENRE from a simple reading. I don't mean you telling the reader where you want it shevled, but an overall "feel." Someone picking this up off a desk at an agency or publisher should not have to read an accompanying query in order to determine where it would sit on the shelf. It should leap off the page and make it absolutely clear where it will best sell to the end buyer. For example, different people could believe this is for the fantasy/SF shelf (whether set in the middle ages or a completely different planet with similar locations to Earth's). Or it could be a paranormal mystery for the mystery/suspense shelf, an urban fantasy for the dark fantasy shelf, on the YA shelves (since the protagonist is just out of college) or even a paranormal romance.

Next, you say "witch" throughout as though the reader will understand what that means in your reality. But we don't. Since Wiccans don't presently HAVE a mystery-solving Council or Guardians, then obviously your reality has something the real world doesn't. But that critical world-building isn't identified or given any depth in the synopsis. "Because I said so" as an explanation of terminology is the fast track to the rejection pile. You'd be better served to change the terminology from "witch" and "Wiccan" to totally unique terms that aren't like anyone else's world. Make up a word to call your witches. Otherwise, the reader will have built-in aspirations for your characters that you'll have to fight to overcome at every turn.

You have hints of a romance in here, but unless you've written a menage' book, you've failed to give the editor/agent who is LOOKING for a romance, based on your wording here, the required happy ending. You pair Abby off in the second paragraph with Alec, then switch to Ephraim and then give her neither. That won't win you friends when the synopsis is read. If it's NOT a romance, then don't even bother to insert the hints. It's merely a subplot like any other, but not the main plot. The main plot is your goal. You'll be setting up the synopsis for failure if you lose the reader along the way.

Believability of the overall plot is another of my concerns. She's just out of college and yet is given a plum assignment as a Guardian? Huh? There's no one else better out there? Yeah, she's from a prominent family, but no. I don't buy it. Perhaps a trainee, or even a low level agent who gets in over her head, but a FULL guardian of older, more experienced witches? In my mind, it's the equivalent of a college graduate being selected to guard the First Family . . . with no intervening training. Then you've got a situation where humans are being violently abducted--at least, I presume the disappearing students are humans--and the council doesn't take into account Abby and Ephraim's past history before slapping them together? Are they that short of agents, or that stupid? Hasn't anyone been watching her while her powers have been building? It seems obvious in the first paragraph that it's happened, but then the logic later fails. Putting together warring ex-lovers on an assignment is a recipe for failure and loss of life.

It might well be that these issues are completely clear in the book, but without them being clear in the synopsis, nobody will ever make it TO the book. There are more logic problems as well, but these are the ones that jumped out at me on first read.

You're also setting up the ending without a clear resolution. It's pretty obvious you're planning this to be first in a series. That's fine and well, but you cannot and MUST NOT end the BOOK (or its synopsis) without a clear resolution of the primary plot. Are the hostages rescued? By who? It sure as heck better be by Abby. Where did Alec disappear to? What about Mary? If they're mentioned at all, they should be resolved. If there's no space, cut them. But if there really is no actual clear resolution in the book, then the synopsis isn't your only problem. It's a potentially fatal flaw in the manuscript which could make it difficult, if not impossible, to sell.

Once you've nailed down some of the overall theme and construction problems, we can work on more detail. But IMO, you'll need to start from scratch on this one.

Author: Cindy Kay
Date:   10-30-09 23:06

Erica,

What she said.

Smashing critique Cathy.

Author: Erica Bertel
Date:   11-01-09 21:01

Cathy,

That was exactly what I needed. Thanks. Back to the drawing board. The good news is that although it isn't a happy end per say everything is wrapped up in the MS. Abby is the reason but it leaves her emotionally damaged.

Author: Honey Pen
Date:   11-01-09 22:44

Great job Cathy C. (Wanna have a go at my first two novels? Just kidding. I appreciate a good eye, that's all.)

Erica, you are a lucky girl.