Below is a synopsis of my current work-in-progress. Like most authors, I love writing books but hate writing a synopsis and/or query letters. Sooooo ... how about you lend me a hand, er, eye? Give me your thoughts on what could be improved or where I might have had grammar amnesia.
Surprisingly Supernatural, Synopsis
Elaina Matthews had no idea how much trouble two small sentences could cause. But she was about to find out.
Following a fatal car crash resulting in the death of Elaina’s parents, Elaina discovers that she has inherited their house in small-town Yellow Springs, OH. As an only child, she’d expected their property to pass on to her. What she didn’t expect was the plea from her mother, requesting Elaina take up residence in the house for a period of no less than two years prior to the property being sold.
Recently divorced and still young at 28, Elaina had little to lose by leaving her life in Hilton Head, SC behind in favor of honoring her mother’s request. Two sentences tacked on to the will with no further explanation. But it was her mother’s last request and even though she had no desire to live in some northwestern hick town she’d only ever visited once in the three years since her parents moved there, she had no pressing reason to decline.
Elaina expected moving to change her life, as any relocation naturally would. But the surprises waiting for her in Yellow Springs were beyond anything she could have imagined.
As if living inside her deceased parents’ home, starting a new job and trying to find her place in a town full of strangers wasn’t stressful enough, there’s a gorgeous man with a devastating smile that lives in the woods … and he claims he’s an Elf.
When Elaina first meets Ellis, it’s no “heroine stumbles and gallant hero catches her” fairytale beginning. In fact, she falls flat on her face while hiking alone in the woods, following a trail marked on one of her mother’s mysterious, hand drawn maps. However, she wasn’t as alone as she thought, as indicated by the mocking laughter.
Elaina isn’t one for whimsy and she certainly isn’t inclined to believe the insane stories told by a jerk who laughs at a woman when she takes a tumble, even if he does look like a Greek god. Staying away from him seems like the smartest thing to do, too bad it isn’t that easy. Ellis seems to pop up around every freaking corner and he won’t stop trying to convince her of a secret supernatural world complete with Solar Elves and their evil counterparts, the Zentry.
His stories becomes harder and harder for her to deny as the evidence starts to accumulate in Ellis’s favor. When Elaina is forced through a portal in the woods and ends up in the realm of the Solar Elves, she can no longer cling to her idea of a simple, singular world.
Accepting Ellis is an Elf is one thing, accepting him as a lover is a complication she doesn’t need. Especially when Zane—A Zentry Elf living apart from his clan while trying to right the wrongs done by his malevolent father, the Zentry Clan leader—shows up and starts charming Elaina with his dark good looks and self-sacrificing ways. Maintaining a platonic relationship with them both becomes more difficult by the day until they’re all walking a tightrope that could end in more than one broken heart.
In the meantime, a woman shows up at Elaina’s house, claiming she intends to exact payment from Elaina on a supernatural debt owed to the woman by Elaina’s mother. Being that Elaina’s mother is dead, Elaina is obligated to pay the debt and is saddled with powers and responsibilities of which she doesn’t fully understand and can’t control. She also cannot ask the woman who gave her the powers to explain because the woman was rude enough to die immediately after the power transfer was complete … and she inconveniently left something called a “Soul Tree”—a mature cherry tree—growing through the middle of Elaina’s paved driveway.
Add a clan full of pixies, one mischievous cat, a sexy best-friend who understands The Gremlins was one of the greatest movies of all time, and the threat of an impending war … and Elaina’s life begins to equal a SURPRISINGLY SUPERNATURAL debacle.
Elaina Matthews is determined to keep her humor, and her heart, intact while adjusting to this new SURPRISINGLY SUPERNATURAL world. Now, if she can only figure out how to control her new powers and stop a war between the Clans from exploding and destroying everyone she’s come to love …
Annnnnd just for fun ...
