PW #355: Young Adult Science Fiction #ownvoices: ALL THOSE WHO WANDER

Manuscript Status: Two week delivery

Mentor Name: Sheena Boekweg

Mentee Name: Angela Wang

Title: ALL THOSE WHO WANDER

Category: Young Adult

Genre: Science Fiction #ownvoices

Word Count: 89,000

Pitch:

WANT meets TIMELESS: Bree Lu is hired by her aunt to hunt time-traveling criminals, but catching them triggers missing memories. Haunted by recollections of growing up with them—from one who might be her brother to a bionic-armed boy she called her best friend—Bree must uncover her identity in the criminal city outside time, or risk choosing the wrong side in a war against everyone she loves.

Excerpt:

There’s something beautiful about order. Whether it’s books color-coded and perfectly sorted by genre, or the precise row of footprints I’ve left up the snow-covered driveway, it’s comforting to know everything has its place. Is how other people’s memories are—one after another in perfect sequence, a past they can walk through over and over again?

If only my past could be the same way.

I shiver, drawing up my collar. What does it matter if my memory is a broken kaleidoscope, spotty and missing pieces? My aunt has filled in the holes for me. And it’s probably better for me to just forget the night that painted the scars on my back. I have the present, and, most importantly, the future. There’s no reason to look backwards when you’ve got somewhere in front of you to go.

It’s getting late. The sky has become the color of an old bruise, yellow at the edges. It takes a few jiggles of the lock for the key to finally give, and I squint into the dark living room.

“Selene?” I call. “I’m home.”

I shed my jacket and backpack, plodding into the kitchen. The silence of the house is overwhelming, a near physical weight against my chest. I stayed after school with some drama club friends; my aunt should be back already. There’s no way she’d skip out on me. Not today.