Blind Speed Dating #43

Title: RIPPLE

Genre: YA dystopian time slip

Word Count: 98,000

Query:

Kali Addison wishes her dad never invented time machines. Maybe then the Protectorate would do their job running the country, rather than playing god. The Ripples they cause by travelling back in time to "fix things", are getting old. She's tired of them changing people she loves, or worse, making it as if they never existed. Turns out, worrying about it isn't needed, they're all incinerated when a bomb drops on her seventeenth birthday party--everyone, that is, but herself and the bad-ass vintage necklace her mom gave her as a present.

Completely alone, and her father's work in ashes, fate would have it that Kali's now a freakin' time machine. Or is it the necklace? She's too busy being catapulted into the past by a power she has no control over, to think about it. Maybe the strange, but oh-so-cute guy who turns up every time she travels, can help her figure it out. But knowing the truth would mean facing the Protectorate and her own forgotten past. Those obstacles may be a way bigger challenge than she's ready for. And if so, it's times up. For everyone.

           

Mystical, mixes with real life fears of love and loss in this dystopian time slip novel for young adults. RIPPLE is complete at 98,000 words, and has series potential.

           

I am a member of SCBWI and David Farland's Writers Group. More important, I am a seventeen-year-old, stuck in a thirty-two year old body, writing books to fill the void.

           

First 250:

I hate time travel. It's the one absolute thought I have in my head when I crane my neck to take in the massive Clandestine, and all its bland glory. The commoners appear just as dull with their outfits the shade of dirty snow and solemn facial expressions.

Today, I match them.

Preparation for a journey through time doesn't allow for distractions like color or commotion. There are no windows either. So no way to enjoy the cool spring breeze or hear the birds chirp me a happy birthday song.

Nope.

I get to be serenaded by the whispers of curious onlookers wondering why I'm travelling in public, and jostled about from line to line until we make it to the time dock I choose.       

I guess I have that on my side. My loser friends; Sage, Greer and Flip are letting me pick the "when" we travel to as my birthday present. I can't understand how they think it's a present at all. They know how much I despise this whole scene. I guess I'm the idiot for agreeing to it in the first place.

Oh well, maybe luck will reign down on me and no one will notice the inventor's daughter is about to use one of his time machines. Or maybe I'll experience a first, and won't get sick when I travel. And maybe, just maybe, the tracker chip they insert into our arms before we leave won't kill us if we cause a Ripple.

Nah.

Luck doesn't free-flow into my life too often.