[QCrit] INFAMOUS YA Contemporary, 52k words, First attempt.
*please be kind I’m already on antidepressants.
Dear Agent,
I am seeking representation for INFAMOUS, a 52,000-word commercial contemporary YA novel. It combines the social media crime elements of Holly Jackson’s A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER with the influencer protagonists of Lilia Buckingham and Sara Shepard’s INFLUENCE.
Posting five-finger-discount hauls on Tumblr and joining a secret crime collective are a dream for eighteen-year-old Tenley Van Houten, until betraying her best friend might get her a body bag instead of one from Balenciaga.
Eighteen-year-old Tenley shoplifts to manage her anxiety. The dopamine doesn’t hurt either. After all, there are so many curated boutiques in Sienna Hills, Tenley’s hometown, that it’s easy. Sienna Hills is only a few exits from L.A., which means endless stores for Tenley and her best friend, Amy Wagner, to lift from.
Most of the time Tenley is the one behind the camera, while Amy is in front of it, posting on her YouTube channel. Behind the scenes, though, they work on a different kind of content: Amy’s lifter hauls, which she anonymously posts on Tumblr.
Tenley has always sat shotgun, but she’s shoved into the co-pilot seat when Amy gets accepted into an exclusive online community of lifters. The group, The Collective, takes orders from someone known only as Magpie.
At first, Tenley is happy, and her anxiety finally quiets. Then Magpie asks her to steal something worth more than her entire lifted collection. Tenley pulls it off, but when Amy freezes during the job, Tenley tells Magpie, not because she has to, but because she’s sick of being Amy’s assistant.
Soon, Tenley is fielding not only Magpie’s texts but Amy’s wrath. All of a sudden, Tenley wishes she had stuck with the boutiques: Amy has already committed multiple felonies, so what's one more when she wants payback? Tenley has to get out of The Collective and away from Amy before she winds up memorialized in an Instagram post.
[Bio]
Sincerely,
Me
*I originally had the comps and everything at the bottom but now it seems the style is to put them at the top. My last agent was okay w short word counts I’m hoping this one is too.