GUTGAA Pitch Contest #23: THE BEAUTY OF DESTRUCTION

THE BEAUTY OF DESTRUCTION

YA paranormal thriller

102,000

Query:

The easiest way for fifteen-year-old Mia to cope with her own vicious murder is to forget about it.

When she wakes up in Afterlife, Mia’s blocked out everything – her death, her friends, her family, even her real name. All she knows is that she’s too young to be dead, and she absolutely hates Afterlife’s suffocating serenity.

Mia will do anything to escape it – even serve as Guardian to the lip-glossed and venomous Valerie Wittier. Unseen and unheard, Mia must find a way to prevent Valerie from making fatal errors that, if not amended, will lead to the school shooting that kills six freshmen. But though Valerie holds the power to prevent – not cause – others to die, she’s too selfish and headstrong to care.

Feeling helpless and incompetent, Mia watches the week spin out of control in a kaleidoscope of rumors, fights, rivalry, and romance. She tries to redirect Valerie and save those in jeopardy of dying, but is continually distracted (and obsessively infuriated) by Valerie’s best friend, Grace Hewitt, aka Miss Perpetual Bystander. By the time Mia realizes she’s presiding over the last week of her life, it may be too late to save everyone involved.

First 150 Words:

I was falling, tossed through the sky like a shirt in a dryer. Hair whipped across my face. My arms and legs flailed around, spinning me in circles. I couldn’t tell which way was up or down, but I knew I was dying. I remembered once hearing that when you fell in a dream, you never hit the ground. If you did, you’d die. The thought made my chest constrict so tightly I wondered if my life was squeezing out of me, preparing me for a giant splat of my body against the pavement. A small part of me clung to the hope that I’d never stop falling – that I’d go on like this forever. But, of course, that didn’t happen.

I stopped with a jerk like I’d been riding some rusted carny ride and found myself standing with my eyes tightly closed. I was pretty certain that my bones weren’t broken and my guts weren’t splayed across an empty sidewalk.