The Wilde's Fire Editor-Judged Contest

The Wilde's Fire Editor-Judged Contest Begins....NOW!

“There is no pain in this death, only peace, knowing I am going to die with the one I love the most.”—Katriona Wilde.

Wilde's Fire by Krystal Wade is available now!

It's time for another contest! I know, I know, I've been a little contest happy lately but I promise this will be the last one posted for awhile. 

Anyways, there's still time to sign up (it's also a blog hop) so if you are interested, just sign up on the linky at the bottom of this post. Then, you'll need to post your first 500 words and query on your own blog and leave constructive criticism on the entries for as many of the other participating blogs as you can before the 28th. At that point, all submissions will be sent in and a winner will be chosen. The prize is a full request from Curiosity Quills Press.

Title: DAUGHTER OF THE MOON

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Query:

Seventeen-year-old Selina Kane always knew she was different, but never imagined she was last-living-necromancer different. Not until she starts speaking the language of the Underworld and visiting Acherusian Lake in her dreams. And then Blake storms into her life, claiming to be her bonded protector and making her blush and stumble over her words. Blake warns Selina about Ciara, queen of the undead. Ciara has gained ground in the world of the living, and it isn’t a secret that she feels threatened by Selina’s return.

Before long, the undead attack and Selina watches helplessly through the only spell she can conjure – a protective shield – as Blake is dragged away in her place. Selina assumes the undead have murdered him and she turns to the necromantic powers she hardly knows how to use, risking her life to search for Blake in the Underworld. But Selina doesn’t find his soul resting peacefully in Acherusian Lake. Blake’s been transformed into one of the undead, and the guards of the Underworld expect her to find and destroy him.

Selina doesn’t care what the guards’ idea of her duty as a necromancer is; she’s determined to get Blake back in one piece. There is one spell, one that would save Blake’s soul, but she’d have to kill him to use it, and worse, transform him into a ferryman for the Underworld. There may be other ways to save him though, if she's willing to make dark alliances with the undead. Selina knows she shouldn’t, but with Blake’s life in jeopardy, the line between good and evil starts to blur.

First 500

As far as she knew, Selina was the only seventeen-year-old with her own burial plot. And once a year, she looked forward to nothing so much as to visiting her grave.

“I can give you a ride to school today, if you want. Since it’s your birthday,” Jess said, jingling the keys to the old Chrysler she’d inherited from Grandpa last summer.

“Thanks, Sis, but actually, I want to visit my mother on the way so I’ll just ride my bike.”

“We can stop at the cemetery on the way home,” Jess offered.

“I’d rather go now.” She would have already been at the cemetery a minute past midnight, if she’d dared.

“Yeah, sure. No problem. See you tonight,” Jess said. Her eyes were full of understanding and Selina turned away to hide the shame creeping into her face.

Selina and Jess, like all of their brothers and sisters, had been adopted. But Selina had only a few fragmented memories of the mother she’d lost.

Soft, brown hair twined around her chubby, toddler fingers.

The  smell of soap.

A hummed tune.

Reaching out to accept the urn of her mother’s ashes.

Jess had been thirteen when her parents died. Using the loss of a mother she barely even remembered with someone like Jess was wrong, and Selina knew it. But she had to get to the cemetery before the wild roses covering her grave bloomed.

Her hands shook with excitement as she pulled her bike out of the side yard and closed the gate behind her. She jumped onto the saddle and pedaled down the driveway as fast as she could. Every moment spent on the road was one moment in which her roses might bloom without her. One moment in which the message they were meant to bring her might be forever lost.

Selina hunched down and lost herself in the sound of wheels on pavement and the rhythm of her breathing. Before long, she was skidding to a stop before the black, wrought-iron gates of the cemetery. She leaned her bike against the fence without bothering to lock it up and raced onto the field of graves. The grass was slippery with morning dew and it squeaked beneath her shoes. Although she was only ever here once a year, she expertly wove her way between headstones in a near beeline to the oak tree which shaded her grave.

Please, don’t let me be too late.

A vine of wild rosebuds emerged from the grass in the center of her plot. A sigh of relief whooshed out of Selina’s lungs even as she tried to catch her breath from the sprint over; she’d made it. She leaned against the oak tree with her hands on her knees and her eyes glued to the rosebuds. In the morning shade of the oak tree, the rosebuds were black. Four years of experience told her though that they were actually a deep purple.

There are so many. More than ever before.