[QCrit] Fate Unwinding, YA, fantasy, 81K words (First Attempt)
I've recently finished a project of mine, and wanted to run my query past eyes that aren't mine to see if it reads acceptably before I send it off to an agent and get toasted. Any advice is welcome, as are any critiques.
Dear agent,
Raised as a knight of the crimson god of war, Amaryllis has always believed in the will of her god. The gods, after all, never falter. Never fail. And Somniferum, the dragon god of conquest and fire, promises to her that she will be a hero beyond reckoning, if only she stays the path.
But when her youngest brother, Joseph, is selected as a sacrifice for her nation’s prosperity, Amaryllis refuses to believe that her god would ask such a price of her. She runs away in rebellion to seek out answers and rescue Joseph from a grisly fate, no matter the price. But with her house turned against her and her god unresponsive to her prayers, the task seems insurmountable.
When her rebellion puts her in the shadow of an eons-long war against the divine, Amaryllis is forced to re-evaluate everything that she has ever known. But she is not without weapons. The mysterious Companion, a god who does not appear even in the oldest myths, gives Amaryllis his blessing, and insists that his price will not be any more terrible than a favor.
Fate Unwinding is a young adult fantasy novel spanning 81,000 words. It combines ideas on progress and stagnation from books like Red Rising by Pierce Brown and Scythe by Neal Shusterman, while depicting a world frozen in the throes of an industrial revolution as in Eoin Colfer’s Airman and The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.