Hello everyone!
Withour further ado here is my query and the first 250 words of my manuscript.
The Query
The twentieth century is but a few years old. Helen Hawke thinks that it is about time Detective Wilson Adkins starts to take her seriously and accepts her as his young assistant. Staying behind a desk is not something she can endure much longer.
But before she even gets to celebrate her first successful case, a mysterious letter arrives addressed to detective Adkins, and its contents could not be more intriguing. A stranger invites the detective not for a tea party or a conversation over dinner, but to watch him turn a small English village into chaos. Perhaps even kill people. It’s a game, this stranger says, and warns him that he will not be able to stop him. He’s welcome to try, nevertheless.
Mr Adkins claims he has no idea why this person would choose a small-time detective like himself. Yet Helen suspects that might not be the whole truth. As Helen is thrown into a world of almost constant worry and danger, she starts to find that the person she trusts the most might not be exactly who he says he is.
The time to prove herself has arrived, as she wished for so long. But will she regret it?
SINCERELY YOURS, THE VILLAIN, an YA Historical Mystery, is 54,000 words long.
250 Words – Sincerely Yours, the Villain
The cold welcomed me with open arms as soon as I opened the doors. I buried my face deeper in my scarf. I did not want to be ungrateful, but I had just woken up and traces of my warm bed still lingered on me. Only then, with a deep breath to gather my courage, did I throw myself into the awakening streets.
I did not even like getting up so soon, but it was becoming more and more common, now that I spent my days with the detective. I used to tell him I was still young, and therefore I had to take advantage of the reputation that I spent all morning in bed and the whole afternoon doing nothing. He then would answer that he was old enough to spend his days comfortable in an armchair, smoking a pipe and reading a classic novel. However, he did not. Everyone had to compromise.
Given that I had to walk to his house, instead of taking a carriage, it meant I would arrive already awake and ready to work. The cold would take care of that even if I did not want to. It also meant I would have the opportunity to observe people in their natural habitat, as he was always telling me to do. Not that I had the chance to do that spending the whole day closed in his office, but he still believed I was not ready to go help him with his work cases. (…)
Thank you for reading!