52. THE BLOOD ROSE REBELLION – Young Adult Historical Fantasy

Mentor Name: Virginia Boecker

Mentee Name: Rosalyn Eves

Title: THE BLOOD ROSE REBELLION

Category: Young Adult

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Word Count: 90,000

Pitch:

Unable to use magic in a Victorian world governed by it, sixteen-year-old Anna Arden will do anything to belong. But when exiled to Hungary for spell-breaking, Anna must choose: deny her unique ability for high society life—or embrace it, destroy her world’s greatest spell, spark a revolution, and change the face of magic itself.

Excerpt:

London, April 1847

I did not set out to ruin my sister’s debut.

Indeed, there were any number of things I deliberately did not do that day.

I did not pray for rain, as I knelt in the small chapel of our London townhouse that morning, the cold of the floor seeping into my bones. Instead, I listened to Mama’s petition for successful spells and sunshine. Peeking through my lashes at Elizabeth’s smug face, I yearned to ask for disquiet, disorder, and torrential downpours—calamitous words that might have eased, a little, the restless crawling in my heart. But I swallowed the words unsaid. Even should God heed such a treacherous prayer, my father would not. And though Papa’s weather magic would cost him a headache, my sister would dance under clear skies.

I did not argue with Elizabeth, when she banned me from the ballroom where she and Mama laid the final grounding for her illusions. “You’ll break my concentration,” she said, “and spoil my spells.”

But then I did not go to the schoolroom, where I was expected to improve my sketching while James studied his Latin. Instead, I lingered (Mama would say loitered) in the lower hall, watching the servants scurry back and forth with their brooms and buckets and cleaning cloths, in feverish preparation for the ball. I did not rest, as Elizabeth did.

Because of those omissions, I was in the hallway when Lord Frederick Markson Worthing came calling.