FIREFLIES - Adult Contemporary Fantasy

Eleanor Greene is resigned to her mediocre life. Twenty five, a college dropout, and a certified mental-case (according to her friends and family), Eleanor is still [you can take out the moderately – it takes away from the tension instead of adding] obsessed with a [you can take out the old…unless you mean it was ancient: notably old] book she read as a kid: a fictitious encyclopedia about a magical world called Lulia. One morning, Eleanor [you can take out the “is floored”, because we assume that] stumbles upon an opal pendant that perfectly [you don’t need “and mysteriously” – also assumed] matches an entry in the encyclopedia [more succinct than “book from her childhood”]. After this discovery [Does she put it on?], the world of magic that hides within the alleyways of the city begins to open up to her. Despite the rational part of her mind telling her she’s suffering from another psychotic breakdown, Eleanor starts her magical education in the filthy, but mystical, backstreets of New Orleans while making a few friends along the way [this last part is a lot of info to pack into a sentence fragment. How does she start her magical education? Is there a school? Does she have a teacher? Who are her friends, and how does she make them? If you can give us a few vivid hints here, that would help].



But Eleanor and her companions must flee to another world when a former friend begins to hunt them down [This is also a lot of info, not enough detail. I don’t know who her companions are, who the former friend is, and what the friend’s motivation is in hunting them down. There’s too many questions churning in my head, nothing to grab onto, so I can’t get hooked]. While they scramble to find a way to escape from Earth [wait, from Earth entirely?], Eleanor discovers something amazing: Lulia is real [oh, wait, I thought that’s where they were all along! I thought there were portals in the alleyways]. But when she and her friends arrive in Lulia, it’s clear that the once-wondrous land is dying. Eleanor realizes that the land of her childhood dreams has become a hellscape teeming with enormous beasts, Machiavellian magicians, and insidious secrets. Soon, Eleanor and her comrades uncover a sinister truth about Lulia that threatens to destroy the universe [the universe-destroying secret is a bit generic. Give us a clue as to why this one is unique]. They must fight to save Lulia at any cost .

[This query intrigues me. With a bit more worldbuilding it would hook better!]

I agree with Lumpy and Michelle. This query needs specifics.

I also think it's a bit out of proportion. You spend a whole paragraph on the set-up, that Eleanor has found a magic world related to a book from her childhood. Then you describe the plot in the second paragraph, but vaguely.

First paragraph could be a good place to introduce the frenemy.

I agree with the other critiques. The only thing I want to add is that twenty-five should be hyphenated. Typos in your query are going to make agents wonder how well you edited the manuscript. And "mental-case" is likely to offend people with mental illness. I'd look for some other way to phrase it.